Death Row

Dear Brandon Bernard (inmate #91908-080),

This morning, the sky is a crisp blue and wisps of clouds slowly move across the horizon. The clouds seem wrong, put there by an inpatient painter who wished she had used a different brush. This December morning, my mind has drifted to you. I hope this letter reaches you in time. I worry that I waited too long to write it. I have been hoping that I would learn some news that would change your fate and that I could write a congratulations letter. But not now, not today.  

I learned about you from Sister Helen Prejean, who did a talk at University of California, Santa Barbara.  I live and work as a psychologist in Santa Barbara. I am not from here, I grew up in New York, Chicago, Montana and Colorado, but my adult life has been in this state. Since I was a child, my curiosity and empathy has pulled me toward helping people like you – living out lives you would never choose for yourselves, because of one (or more) really bad choice. Because I am a psychologist, I like to look below, beneath that bad choice there are roots and a seedling that was planted and nurtured by the mistakes of others or society and that led to something deep and desperate. I know you have remorse and regret and would undo it all if you could. 

I have never believed in the death penalty. Every time I get a chance to vote on it, I vote to end such a barbaric punishment. At our dinner table last night, I told my three young children that I was writing to you, because our government (one that I did not vote for) had suddenly decided it was your time, as if you haven’t paid enough by spending all of your adult life incarcerated. My children did not understand what the death penalty was and when explained to them, they were horrified and then so sad. Activism has only been something that lives like a small, useless organ inside of me. I am shy and don’t often put myself out there for the causes I believe in. I think that is beginning to change in me though, because I am tired of watching from the bench on the sidelines. I am never going to help make a difference if I don’t get in the game.

Your story has moved me and I want you to know that your life has made a difference in mine. You have 5 people in this home rooting for you and for others who will come after you. Even if this train keeps on rolling and the plan to take your life is fulfilled by the end of next week, I trust that you will be held in the arms of the universe.

From one crocheter to another, our lives, like yarn, interlock and loop and slip through one another’s creating one long chain. That chain is only the beginning.

Wishing you a painless journey to the great beyond, see you on the other side.

Brooke Sears

Housebound Pie

Dear Housebound Families, 

I am on day five of being at home with my children. We ducked out of school early when my oldest child started coughing. After our first day home, emails came rolling in: volleyball cancelled, basketball at the YMCA cancelled, surfing cancelled, school closed, birthday party cancelled, team party postponed. Then came our decision to cancel our spring break road trip to Colorado, one of our favorite trips of the year. In a matter of 48 hours, our children’s schedules cleared.  My husband and I have the privilege of being able to work from home. While my work as a clinical psychologist has become greatly impacted, I can still provide my services to my clients virtually. With both of us trying to continue working with our children at home, my husband and I knew that we had to make this time period together as a family, a success.

What I know about my children is that too much free time is not good for them. They become ships without anchors and knock against us and each other trying to ground themselves. On a family hike this weekend, I brought up the idea with my children to think of themselves as if they are a pie made up of different pieces. (I had pie on my brain because my birthday is on Saturday and I quarantine-shopped for frozen fruit to make myself a pie). I told my children, imagine that each piece of your pie is necessary to make you feel happy during this crazy time (and maybe throughout your life). 

We brainstormed what our pie pieces might be: 

• Physical activity

• Creativity and crafting

• Music

• Connection with friends via email and video chats and good old fashioned phone calls

• Connecting with our older family members who are more isolated and vulnerable

• Passion project 

• Learn something new, like a foreign language on Duolingo

• Schoolwork 

• Free time

• Something that makes you laugh or feel happy

• 30 minutes of television (something we used to do only on weekends)

• Cooking 

• Chores

My kids came up with things to do in each category. Physical activity for my youngest appeared on his schedule multiple times a day, whereas my middle child needs to be pushed to be active. My son has shooting hoops, skateboarding on the patio, hiking and when these rains stop - surfing. My daughter has dancing, yoga, hiking, jumping on the trampoline and playing volleyball. My kids spent an entire day creating lists of what to do in each category and designing creative schedules on the computer or by free hand. They all decided that they wanted to research something that they were interested in, write a report on it and create a presentation on their topic. My oldest wants to film and edit ted-talk like videos of their presentations.

My children essentially crafted plans for their ideal days, with some help in attending to all of the parts of themselves that are necessary for them to feel good. Some people are excited to be home to not have to adhere to a schedule and to binge watch tv, but try to remember what you feel like after a day of being horizontal in front of a screen. Pretty depressed right? I think we all should set the intention to create our ideal days with self-care woven into as many moments as possible. This is a scary time, we are in uncharted waters and scheduling ourselves to attend to our pies will be the anchor that holds us steady in this storm. 

Be well my community,

Brooke

COVID - 19

Dear Community,

Life begins where fear ends. ~ Osho

I am a recovering emetophobe. My fear began in second grade on a carnival ride and followed me into my early adulthood, when I was systematically desensitized by going to college and living in a dorm. Being around binge drinking is the perfect cure. Just when the phobia started to appear again, I gave birth to 3 children over the course of four years. The minute my eldest entered preschool, the stomach flu went through our home yearly. I was healed again! The residue from having  a phobia about vomit is having a hypersensitivity to germs. Thus, I have begun and ended many days for the past month by consuming articles about the ever-widening path that the coronavirus is tearing across this planet. I like staying on top of the news and educating myself about the nature of this microscopic particle that looks like a fleck of pollen cast from the sun. And I imagine that some of you, like me, are experiencing angst about COVID-19 appearing in our county.

My concerns are for the health and safety of my family and my community, but they also run deeper than fear of illness or even death. My interest is in the collective mental, social and emotional symptoms that come with pandemics. For the past few weeks, COVID-19 fear has taken a seat in my waiting room, greeting each person who enters. My patients sluff their worry, their preparations, their canceled conferences and travel plans, their what-ifs. I try to purify it all. My job as a therapist offers me the gift of feeling the emotional pulse of our community. Today, it feels like our town, our nation, our planet has anxiety induced tachycardia and as a helper, I have the desire to sooth. 

This is a tricky place to reside. We are watching impact zones grow wider as the virus slowly marches toward our community like the Thomas fire did two winters ago. We know how to cope with growing fear, some of did it really well and others...not so much. The toxic effects of stress on human beings has been a headline for years now. Stress increases our blood pressure, increases our blood sugar which can cause weight gain, increases risks of heart attacks, decreases fertility, creates headaches and lowers our immune system’s defenses. We can experience headaches, shortness of breath and heart palpitations. Those are just the physical effects of stress. Behaviorally, we eat more and usually eat food that is not good for us. We sleep less, which also decreases our immunity. Some of us look to numb the feeling with alcohol or drugs. Stress increases the tendency toward angry outbursts and lowers our attention span. Emotionally, stress makes us irritable, anxious, and depressed.

What we are moving toward is a collective outbreak of anxiety. This is called emotional contagion. Emotional contagion is when we synchronize our emotional state with the people around us. It is similar to empathy, but with empathy we are aware that the emotion is about someone else. With emotional contagion, we are unaware that the emotional source is not from within. Theorists think contagion could be from mimicry: he smiles at me, I smile back which shifts my emotional state internally to match his. Additionally, our emotions change the chemistry that we emit from our bodies. Fear pheromones have been confirmed through studies of the smell of our breath and our sweat, though we have yet to scientifically prove that humans can detect emotions from one another’s smell. We don’t even need to be in physical contact with others to pick up emotion. Facebook and Twitter engaged in controversial studies that proved that emotional contagion happens over the internet as well. Even if we do not yet have the scientific evidence of how it happens, we know for sure that we are sensitive to the emotions of those around us. This is a survival mechanism. It keeps us alive in times of danger.

Panic is an uncontrollable fear causing wildly, unthinking behavior that can spread quickly through people and animals. Panic is almost never an effective or useful state of being. Even in life or death moments, we need our wits about us. People often survive disasters and terrifying, dangerous situations because they can control how they respond. I recently had the misfortune of being at the grocery store with empty shelves. I was trying to get frozen spinach and the man in front of me, emptied the shelves of frozen vegetables into his cart. He was shopping in panic. A lot of shoppers were, fear was palpable in the store. It felt terrible.

My work is to help people manage the interaction between their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions in order to better navigate this complicated experience of being alive. I also spend time looking at where some of these patterns began and I often find they go all the way back to childhood and are learned from our parents. We not only lend our nervous system to our children, but we model our behaviors for them as well. How you are handling your mounting anxiety as a parent is going to create a blueprint for how your children handle adversity in their futures. While I wish I could say, our children won’t need this skill, that they will have happy lives where disasters and pandemics will be a thing of the past, I sadly cannot. We are only seeing an increase in the need for resiliency, so let’s get on with learning how to do this well.

Life is a balance between holding on and letting go. ~ Rumi

I have made a practice of emptying my mind after I consume the news. Instead of letting the fear that arises from anxiety inducing news articles, I try not to let fear take root inside of me. Instead I visualize it flowing through me like water. I pull from the news the necessary facts: how to keep my family safe. WASH MY HANDS, really, really well, as much as I can. Try to stop touching my face, a habit I can only break when I wear a mask. And please STAY HOME! Keep your family home, keep your contact circle small. Make decisions for the collective not just yourself. After consuming the news, if you cannot release fear, then try to limit your consumption of it. Your mind attends to what you put in it. If you have the news on the television first thing in the morning, on your car radio on your commute to work and you get push notifications on your phone throughout the day you are not giving yourself space to anchor yourself in your life. You are out there somewhere attending to the problems of the nation and world. You might want to try coming back to you, here. 

You might want to try scheduling a worry appointment for yourself. Go ahead, snicker. I am being serious, though. Instead of letting your mind barrage you with fearful thoughts, try to schedule a worry session at some point in your day, not close to bedtime. Sit down for ten minutes and let your mind go deep into your fears. If you are a writer, write about it. If you are an artist, draw or paint out the fear. Give yourself space to indulge and when you find worry on your mind at another point in the day, tell yourself, I have time for these thoughts during my worry appointment. They are not allowed to be attended to until then. 

It is really important to practice good self-care right now. Weave it in and out of your daily routine. Make sure you are getting enough sleep. I know the time change just happened and sleep is always affected during daylight saving adjustments, but try to be mindful of getting as close to 8 hours a night as possible. Try to eat healthy, whole foods. Lowering your sugar intake can help your gut health, which in turn helps immune system function. Find time to get your heart rate up through exercise, which is one of the most effective antidotes to any mental/emotional health crisis. Sweat is very efficient in releasing anxiety from our systems.

Practice visualizations to help with your worry. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and go to a place in your mind where nothing can harm you. This is your safe place. Fill in all of the details. Where are you? What colors can you see around you? Are you inside or outside? Can you hear waves crashing in the distance, or leaves dancing in the wind, maybe birds singing to one another? Is a fire crackling in a fireplace or a stream trickling over boulders? What smells are around you? Smells from nature like lilac, rosemary, damp mossy earth, or salt air. What can you feel on your skin? What temperature is the air? Is there a breeze or a soft blanket around you? Just imagine yourself in this space where nothing can harm you. If worry comes for a visit, try not to judge yourself for it. Just notice the worry and then send it on its way. Imagine it is a leaf floating on water and drifting downstream or imagine it is a balloon and floats away in the air. Or, imagine your worry combusts and floats away in a puff of smoke. Create the space to practice this visualization whenever you are feeling overwhelmed. 

I encourage you to hone in your skill of positive self-talk. Our minds are very good at negative banter. If only we were as kind to ourselves as we are to others. Talk back to the fear with encouragement and bravery. “We will get through this. I am safe. My body knows how to fight illness. My immune system is strong. We have a skilled medical community. We are strong. I am strong.” Find a set of positive, calming statements that you can use when you are starting feeling anxiety rising.

Finally, engage in stress relieving activities that you love. Human beings are fantastically diverse in their interests. Engage in what feels good to you. Get off your device. Listen to music, have a dance party with yourself, sit in prayer, take a warm bath, do a puzzle, paint, draw, color, write, shoot hoops, sew, consume comedy, read a good book, meditate, go outdoors, walk these beautiful beaches and explore our mountain’s trails, cook a yummy meal, clean out your closet, build a model airplane, call a friend. You get the idea. Turn off the exposure to the collective mindset and turn inward to anchor yourself. 

These mountains that you are 

carrying,

You were only supposed 

to climb.

~ Najwa Zebian

With the bad news pressing down on us, it is important to remember your Self. Take the time to attend to your inner resources. Access that pod of courage that you have buried deep inside. Remember that children’s eyes and ears that are attuned to you. Show them, you’ve got this or pretend like you’ve got this and pretty soon, you will. Be kind to others in the process. It is easy to see one another as a threat, especially outsiders who come on cruise ships and airplanes. We are all human and this tiny little virus is making us feel vulnerable. One of the biggest gifts my work as a crisis responder and psychologist has given to me, has been to bear witness to the unimaginable amount of suffering that human beings have been made to endure. It is from the depths of suffering, that I have seen the most profound resiliency. Once they catch their breath and get accustomed to their new lives and new selves, some survivors even say that they would never give back the experience or the pain, because pain gives birth to something else and that something . . . it can be beautiful too. 

Wishing us all good health. Be well.

Brooke

Brooke Sears, Psy.D.

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Santa Barbara Community Wellness Team

Cold Spring Wellness Committee 

PSY30172

www.drbrookesears.com

Out of Darkness - Why I Walk

Dear American Foundation for Suicide Prevention,

I gathered with hundreds of Santa Barbarians on a glorious morning for the Out of Darkness Walk last Sunday. After years of saying, I should join the walk and not doing it, I finally gathered up my courage and signed up. I signed my young children up too, thinking it would be a good experience for the four of us. Newly licensed as a psychologist, I thought it was a good idea to create more professional connections and joining some members of the psychological association in the walk would allow me to network while supporting a cause that was very important to me.

There was a lot of bickering on the way out of our house that morning.

Just get your sunblock on please, I’ve asked you to do it three times.

Why do we have to do this? I don’t want to go.

Because it is for a good cause.

Where are my shoes?

Why don’t you put them on the shoe rack when you take them off, then you wouldn’t lose them so much.

On and on it went, anyone with kids knows this grumpy routine of leaving the house and trying to be the left-brain for everyone. It is especially bad on an early weekend morning when we’d all prefer to hang around in pajamas for a few lazy hours.

When we arrived at Leadbetter Beach, my kids were surprised at how many people were there. We made our way through the crowd to the sign up desk and got our nametags and then moved over to the bead table.  I was not prepared for the bead table. Displayed before us was a rainbow of beaded necklaces. Red is for the loss of a spouse or partner, orange for the loss of a sibling, gold - a parent, green for my personal struggle, blue for support of the cause, teal because a loved one struggles, purple for the loss of a relative or friend, white for the loss of a child, silver – a lost first responder or military service member. Standing at the table my children said to me, “What should we take?” I said, “purple for your cousins’ grandfather who died by suicide in October.” I took the purple beads too in honor of him and for the two friends that I lost before him. I also picked up blue and my children grabbed it too. We were there to support the cause of suicide prevention. Then I picked up teal, “Who do you know who needs that,” my son asked. “For Uncle Monkey who is still struggling, for some of my friends, and for a few of my clients.” My children began to walk away with their three necklaces dangling from their necks. They were looking for the pastry table.

I stood there, the green strand haunting me, calling to me - my personal struggle. My mind was racing. This will out me if I grab the green beads. Am I ready for this conversation with my kids? Are they too young? Maybe they won’t notice if I grab it. Will my colleagues notice? Would they ever refer to me if they saw this color around my neck? They will think I am unstable, even though I haven’t struggled for 2o years. Don’t take it, don’t risk it. You’ll be a fraud if you don’t take it. But, we need more people to be honest and take these darn, green beads.

There I was, frozen at the bead table. I have been a member of the American Association of Suicidology for years. It took me two and a half years to write my 300-page dissertation on suicide and survivors of suicide. I follow the research and community of sociologists closely. The suicide death of my classmate and colleague after graduate school showed me how my field, the mental health field, treated suicide. We were no different than the rest of the world. There was no outreach to her classmates or teachers – all of us knew she struggled with suicide and lost her mother to a suicide death at the age of 2. She did speeches about it to our class. But, we did not gather and talk about our feelings of guilt, anger, negligence and abandonment. Nothing was said, nothing was done, my school just pretended it didn’t happen. A few of us mourned together at her house with her husband and toddler son, but mostly, through the experience, I learned that mental health professionals were no more awakened to the plights of a suicide loss than bankers.

I am always struck by the lived experience of suicide and the brave folks who open themselves up to tell their story in order to address the stigma and to heal their shame. There is so much shame around suicide, all elements of it: the thoughts, the attempts, the loss of someone to a suicide death. Shame hugs suicide like a child in a large crowd hanging onto his mother’s leg for dear life.

When asked, I am a very open person about my experiences. I am also a psychologist who has been predominantly trained in psychodynamic theory. I am supposed to be a blank slate. I was never very good at being blank though. When I see brave people advocate against what harms them, I am full of admiration and experience a bit of envy. I am an introvert by nature and advocacy is an extrovert’s journey. Grabbing that green strand of beads would mean so much. It would mean that I am ready to support the cause from all sides as a survivor of suicide, a clinician, a researcher, and a survivor of suicidal ideation and behavior.

I picked up the green strand and hung it around my neck and walked over to my children to take a picture in front of an enormous chalkboard titled “Why I Walk”. My daughter misses nothing. Immediately, she said, “why do you have green on, Mom? Did you try to kill yourself?” I responded to her, “I did go through a really hard time when I was a teenager and I am happy to talk to you about it, but let’s do it when we are alone after the walk. You all can ask me any questions that you have”.  

We walked over the psychology association’s table to say hello to my colleagues and I watched some of their eyes glance down toward the strands of beads swaying from my neck. They did not say a thing. I was the acutely aware of my green strand and had a strong urge to tuck into my shirt. I also knew that one of my clients was in the crowd and worried about them seeing me. Before the walk commenced, we gathered as a group and speakers shared stories of suicide loss and personal struggles with suicide attempts. Then they made us hold our beads up over our heads. They went from color to color, spending time honoring each person’s experience. I was mortified. Not only had I donned the green strand, but now I had to take it off and proudly hold it over my head. I did not know it at the time, but I was being filmed in that moment and it was my hand on the news that evening holding the green strand.

I walked with courage and gratitude with my children that morning. Holding the beads over my head was an awakening. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I am a survivor of the effects of mental illness and I am proud that I have lived experience. I think my journey near the edge of that great abyss has deepened me as a person and enhanced my work as a clinician. And quite frankly, any clinician who judges me because I have been deeply touched by suicide is not someone I would refer to either.

Why do I walk?

I thought I was walking for the tortured souls whom I cared about and lost to suicide. I thought I was walking for those who are under my care as a clinician. I thought I was walking for prevention research to help find a way to stop the ever-increasing numbers of those who die, attempt to die and lose a loved one to suicide in this country. I thought I was walking for my fellow Montanans who have the highest rate in our nation, for Native people who are second to Caucasians in suicide deaths, for women who attempt suicide 3 times more than men, for men who die by suicide 3 times more than women. I thought I was walking for the millions of people who, like me, lost someone to suicide. I was walking for all of these reasons and for one more. I was walking for myself. I was honoring the path behind me that was hard and dark and dangerous and the path before me on a spectacular beach on a warm, summer morning with my three, beautiful, brave children at my side. Last Sunday, I left my shame on Leadbetter Beach as if it was a moldy, old towel that no one should wrap herself with after surfing the salty waves. 

I will see you again next year.

Brooke

Conception

It was an honor to represent the Santa Barbara Wellness Team, Santa Barbara Response Network and Santa Barbara County Psychological Association in offering support to the hundreds of people who gathered last night to mourn the victims of the Conception dive boat tragedy together. What a beautiful and healing gathering. I thought the words that were shared by all who spoke were powerful and meaningful and the music and the sounding of the shofar went right to the soul. While I may have only offered flowers, water, and tissues, I believe that our presence there was supportive and valuable. Gratitude was shared with me for just being there.

For me, being of service in times like these is what helps me process and integrate tragedy. Bearing witness to pain and being able to tolerate and embrace it, is one thing I know that I do well. Maybe it is a unique skill reserved for those of us in the mental health and health fields. Last night, as the sun was easing down behind the palms and casting a golden hue over the large crowd of people bearing flowers for the 34 victims and Amazing Grace was bathing us all, seeing the way people were holding onto one another, offering hugs, holding hands, reaching out for one another physically and emotionally, I was struck with the demonstration of the connectedness of love and grief. What a deeply touching experience to see grief and mourning as one of the most profound and raw expressions of love. The love that was offered and received in the crowd of mourners last night was truly breathtaking. My greatest hope is that the families of the deceased, who live far from here, have communities that hold them like ours did last night. I also hope that those brave and stoic first and second responders have the support they need too. Our responders have been so taxed these past few years.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide support and for inevitably ending up being supported in the process.

Letter to My Mother Upon Her Retirement from Hospice

Mom,

My first memory is of a woman.  She has white hair and I don’t know her name.  There was a large window in her kitchen, a round table placed in front of it, and I sat at this table with her, for hours it seems.  She taught me how to push flowers through wire and wrap it all around a hair comb.  She was a widow and one of your Hospice cases.  Although, my childhood mind encoded no grief in this memory, just pure fascination with this wonderfully patient woman who took the time to teach me her hobby. 

The next memory is of a retirement home, a cafeteria with tables and tables of elderly people eating and you introduced me to the woman who could remember every word to every song that she performed on stage, but nothing of her family or even her own name. I was fascinated with how a mind could do that to someone. Allow them to remember their profession, but not the people they love or even themselves. Next, was the oncology unit, where you learned humor was the best medicine for those who put themselves in harms way in the service of others. The nurses and the doctors played ongoing tricks on one another. You made fun of one particularly surly doctor by hanging a finger condom on the bulletin board with a note saying he needed it for his date tonight. The levels of appropriateness or darkness with the humor surely would not pass today’s standards.

You came to my classroom in sixth grade at a time I was embarrassed to even say “hi” to you in front of my friends. You made the students sit in a circle and put stockings on our heads, over our faces and gloves on our hands and then said, “This is what it feels like to be elderly.  Try to read this label. Try to open this bottle. Try to put on your shoes”. 

In the later years, your stories were peppered with details about what happens to the body as it dies.  The bed sores, the impacted bowels, the smells of mouths, the sound of inconsistent, labored, gurgling breath as a person is in their final hours. You often shared with me the cases that haunted you, challenged you, touched you.

Your life’s work has seemed to me to be the unraveling of your own experience with your mother’s rapid battle with ovarian cancer and her eventual death when you were only 20.  For the past 30 years, yours was the hand that was held at the bedside, the voice that consoled, the eyes that witnessed, the heart that was open in those final, sometimes scary, sometimes peaceful transitions. You gave to everyone you worked with, that which you did not receive when you were young. 

When most of our society is unwilling, unable, uninterested, running from, and terrified of the only thing we know we will experience – death.  You have been there.  Solid, present, compassionate. 

“By their fruits, you shall know them.” 

When asked about my work and what has lead me to wanting to be a psychologist, I say, it began with the woman who gave me life, who introduced me to a woman with white hair who taught me to weave wires through plastic flowers as she grieved the death of her beloved husband.

The Coming Storm

The Coming Storm

Dear Santa Barbara Families,

I wanted to reach out to my community as we digest the news of the coming storm to offer a few words of support as we move forward. I imagine some of you are ranging in response to the coming storm from: “everyone’s overreacting, it’s only an inch”, to mildly concerned, to outright fear about what the next few days might bring. This may be our new norm, so how do we want to embark on it?

One thing that is important to remember is that children, when compromised, borrow the nervous system of their primary caregiver. They will look to us to see how to handle stress; they will lean on our stability, our understanding, our courage, our faith and even our humor (if we can muster it). It is imperative that we take good care of ourselves to manage our anxiety so that we show our children how to manage theirs.

How do you manage anxiety? Reach inward. How have you successfully coped in the past? You might use distraction: a good book, a Netflix binge, knitting, cleaning out your garage, or gathering with friends. You might use exercise. You’ve heard me say this already: sweat it out, pee it out, cry it out.  You might want to reach out to your social network or social media network. You could turn to dance, music, art, or writing.  You could access your faith. Whatever it might be, make sure you check in with yourself that it’s working. If not, try something new. There are many stress relievers out there. 

Our children often pick up on more than we are aware of, so be mindful of the things you say and do around them in the coming days. If you need to call a friend to express your worry, try to move to another room. If you are feeling overwhelmed with fear when the rain starts: tell yourself something comforting. “I am safe. My family is safe. Our earth needs rain.” Help your kids come up with mantras of their own. Remind yourself and your children, we have learned from January 9th. We will leave our home if we feel unsafe.

You have the arms that cradle them to sleep. You have the song that sooths them in the night. You have the shoulders that they ride on. Validate their fears and then use the skills that you already have to calm them and yourself.

Wishing you all the best as we practice and master our resiliency through these coming storms.

After the Debris Flow

Dear Santa Barbara Families,

I wanted to reach out to you all this morning because I know how I felt waking up today and thought some of you might be feeling something similar. I woke up exhausted from days of not sleeping well and then the sadness came and then I felt agitated and now I don’t know what I feel. That all happened in the span of about 10 minutes. I thought it might be helpful to remind you all that we are all going to process this horrific tragedy in our own unique ways.

When we go through traumas like this our bodies go into to a response: fight, flight, freeze or faint. These are survival mechanisms that have kept us alive for centuries. When we are in this mode, our bodies move the blood from our brains and some of our organs to our limbs and muscles so that we might be able to respond to danger. Fight mode gives us a sense of action, purpose, and force. It focuses us and seems to give us power and control in a powerless situation. It is important to know that when in this fight or flight mode our cognitive functioning has changed and we literally cannot hold all of the pieces of the situation. This is an adaptive process and is here for a reason, it keeps us alive. We need to actively focus on how we must downshift from it when we don’t need it. To get our minds and bodies recalibrated. One way we can do this is with flushing our systems. You can flush three ways: cry it out, sweat it out or pee it out. That’s why you are told to exercise, drink water, allow yourself to grieve.

We have these two things: love and fear. Both have gotten us through existence. Fear keeps us alive. Love gives us hope, courage, purpose and meaning. Both of these things have a space here and in the coming weeks. As we gather together as a community to grieve and heal and celebrate the lives of our deceased community members be gentile with yourselves and with those you love.

Letter to My Friend's Son After She Died By Suicide

My Dearest Gabriel,

It has taken me too many years to write this letter to you.  It was just too difficult for me to find the courage, the honesty and the words to talk about your mother, her life and her death.  Thinking about her still brings a lump to my throat and sends a shudder of melancholy and a pang of guilt through me.

I was a friend of your mother’s.  We were in graduate school together.  For two years I was a student with your mother.  I got to know her well as we worked our way through a night program that was teaching us about how to help people who are in pain.  Your mother was beautiful.  When she walked into the room the first night of school, she took my breath away.  She was the type of person who always looked so put together and who seemed so proud.  Your mother had a smile was wide and warm.  Her energy beamed like a lighthouse. 

Your mother was the bravest among us in graduate school.  She would volunteer to be the first of us to practice the art of therapy in front class without shame or hesitation.  She was always up for demonstrating being a therapist or client, or for being hypnotized or for offering a real life example of what we were learning.  One night, she demonstrated being a therapist on me.  I can still see the way she looked at me with such empathy and kindness as I stammered shyly through my own life’s pain. 

Your mother was by far the most honest person I have ever met.  She would share things about herself. She divulged things that many people burry deep inside themselves and let fester there.  But your mother, she would talk openly about her terribly painful, traumatic and tragic childhood.  She talked about her own devastating loss of her mother to suicide when she was just two, just like you.  She shared her history with addiction – how she turned to drugs and alcohol to try to cope with the trauma she experienced as a little girl.  She was eloquent about her terrifying and overwhelming battle with depression.  Her honesty was inspiring.  If only more people could be so open about themselves, so many barriers would fall, shame and stigma would be overcome and so much more healing could be done. 

But most of all, Gabriel, she would talk about you.  When she spoke about you, her eyes would come alive.  It was like seeing a flower unfold itself for the first time or like watching the sun peak up from behind the San Jacinto Mountains illuminating the morning dew like millions of tiny gems laid perfectly across the lawn.  She told me that when she was pregnant with you, it was the happiest that she had ever been in her life.  She talked about you growing up so quickly – learning to walk.  One day, she and I followed you toddling around our classmate’s backyard.  She was so sweet with you and just beamed with delight when she looked at you.  She was also careful with you and so very proud of you.  One especially dark night, your mother told me that you were the only reason she was still alive.

I used to tell your mom about this song that I loved that had the same name as you, Gabriel.  I sang a terrible rendition of it for her.  I gave up midway and told her, “I’m going to bring you the cd.  This song seems like it was written by you.”  I never gave her that cd, so I am giving it to you with this letter.  I want to share with you the lyrics. 

Gabriel

Written by Lamb

I can fly
But I want his wings
I can shine even in the darkness
But I crave the light that he brings
Revel in the songs that he sings
My angel Gabriel

I can love
But I need his heart
I am strong even on my own
But from him I never want to part
He’s been there since the very start
My angel Gabriel
My angel Gabriel

Bless the day he came to be
Angels wings carried him to me
Heavenly
I can fly
But I want his wings
I can shine even in the darkness
But I crave the light that he brings
Revel in the songs that he sings
My angel Gabriel
My angel Gabriel
My angel Gabriel

Near the end of our schooling together, your mother’s depression began to take over.  Her class work slipped, she no longer came to school the put-together woman we had come to know.  A few classes she smelled of alcohol.  Our last course together was a group therapy class.  In that class, one Sunday, I told your mother that I had pulled away from her because based on my own history, it was too difficult for me to be around her when she was using alcohol to cope.  I told her this in front of our professor and all of the other students and she began to cry.  She cried and cried and cried.  She skipped the lunch break that afternoon to cry in her car.  Everyone in class said it was brave of me to be honest with her.  But, all that I could think was: I hurt her… I hurt her… I hurt her…  How can I take it back?  To this day, the black tar of guilt still oozes inside of me when I think of that moment.  I imagine that so many of us have been left behind with similar moments, holding onto them like hot coals from a fire long extinguished.  Burning us as we wonder about how we might have added to her pain.  Believing, if we changed this one thing, we might have changed her fate.  The thoughts….if only, if only, if only…trailing behind us as if we are wearing them like a cape.

There were so many warnings, Gabriel, that your mother would die the way she did.  All of us saw them, heard them, experienced them.  She was surrounded by professors who were licensed psychologists and students who were training to be therapists.  She had old and new friends, a therapist, a lawyer and your father.  All of us knew.  We knew she was at risk.  We heard her threats.  One of our classmates was speaking with her on the telephone a few months before she died.  Your mother talked to her about how bleak she felt about her future, about her sobriety, and about how her choices and behaviors had caused her to lose custody of you.  Our friend asked her directly if she was threatening suicide.  She said, “If you are, I am going to hang up the phone and get you some help right now.”  Your mom assured her that she would be fine and she would not do anything like that.  But we all knew that she could.  She knew that she could.  So the afternoon that I got the call that your mother’s body had been found, I cannot say that I was shocked, but I was devastated. 

I imagine you reading this now and experiencing it as something like a confession letter.  Me telling you that I feel guilty about publicly humiliating your mother and that I have blamed myself all these years for not doing anything about her serious, life-threatening warning signs.  With all of my training, (I actually did an hour and a half speech to our class about suicide, she missed that class), I did not stop her.  In fact, I lost touch with her.  I heard that she went to rehab, I was so happy that she was sober.  I heard about her from others, but I never reached out to her.  I am not sure that I will ever get over my regrets about her death.   

When I think of your mother, Gabriel, I think of her warmth, her strength, her honesty and courage.  I think of her smile.  I think of her tragic, too short life.  And I think of you.  Suicide is never an answer.  Suicide is not an ending of pain, it just disperses the pain among all of the people who are left behind.  Your mother exhausted herself trying to heal her depression.  She got a Master’s degree to try to understand how to heal, she tried medication and therapy, she tried to use relationships and drugs and alcohol.  Her past haunted her, her sadness overwhelmed her and I have come to believe that she saw no other options.  Such is the nature of the suicidal moment, pain leaves no room for comfort or silver linings. But there are always options, Gabriel.  Even in our darkest hours of our longest nights, there is a sun that promises to come if you can just get through the moment.  I wish I could have held her hand through that night, I wish I could have played her that song.  I wish I could have reminded her, in her mentally sickened weakened state, you do have something to live for, you have someone to live for. 

Gabriel, I know that your mother’s death has put a scar on you that will always send a spasm of pain.  I imagine that her death and your grandmother’s death might have planted a nasty seed in you.  One that if nurtured could bloom a weed that tells you this could be your destiny too.  But, do not water that seed.  It is merely a tiny one, smaller than a poppy.  Without attention, it has no power.  I hope that someday your scar might become a gift, a reminder that you were loved more than you were left, that your life was born from a happiness that overtook the most powerful of despairs.  May your scar become an inspiration to make your own life or other’s lives better, to stop the legacy of suicide and learn how to help others.  Gabriel, there are so many people in this world that wear similar scars and it is how we wear them that can shape our lives.

For me, now three years after your mother’s death, I have a scar too; one that I’m using to fuel research about how to help others who feel like you, your father, your mother.  I am writing my doctoral thesis on survivors of suicide.  I am researching about how therapists can best help people who lost loved ones to a suicide death.   I am trying to do something to help me let her go.  Your mother’s suicide has sent me on a long journey of forgiveness and healing, a journey that I am still finding my way through.

I am so, very sorry for your loss, Gabriel.  I hope that somewhere inside, you can feel that brilliant light that your mother embodied because she had her angel…Gabriel.  I hope that light will always be brighter than the darkest of nights. 

With my deepest sympathy,

 Brooke Sears

A Good Enough Mother

A Good-Enough Mother’s Advice

 Dear Soon-to-be Mom,

I was asked to put down some words for you as your are about to have your first child - advice for a new mother.  I am chuckling as I write this, because there will be no other time in your life when you will receive as much advice wanted and unwanted about something you have embarked on more than parenting and mothering.  Total strangers will offer their input on this role, task, gifted position that you will soon hold.  With that being said, I am going to attempt to give you a glimpse of my meager knowledge about mothering.

I remember when my first child was born years ago at the end of August.  Just home from the hospital, my mother walked in the room where he was sleeping beside me, “He’s too cold” she said, as she re-swaddled him and put a hat on his head.  She left the room and my mother in-law came in a short time later, “He’s so hot” she said, as she took him out of the blanket and pulled his hat and pants off.  Each mother has her own way of understanding her children and caring for them. There is no right or wrong way, it’s just your way and you will find it as you gain experience and confidence as a parent. 

When I found out I was pregnant for the first time, my initial thoughts were… Am I going to be a good mother?  Will I do right by this child?  How will I know what to do with a baby?  How will I know how to raise a person who is well-balanced, kind, happy, gives back to the world and who will create a life for him or herself that is filled with enthusiasm and satisfaction?  Will I like this person who is joining my husband and I on our life’s journey?  Will he or she fit in with us?  Will I be able to put myself aside without resentment for this other person whom I’ve yet to even meet?  Will I be able to protect him or her from the bad things that life slams us with?  I was riddled with worry. It is funny that these same questions came back to me with each subsequent pregnancy, my husband reminded me of this when I told him about my concerns about having our third child.   

The bottom line is - you do the best you can do.  If you don’t trust your instinct, which sometimes it’s better not to, then educate yourself by reading, research, asking other moms and then you do your best.  Believe me, you will fail.  He will roll off the bed onto the floor; you will forget to lock the harness of her seat belt for the ride home; he will cry when you yell at him for not listening to you after you’ve had a long, frustrating day; she will hit her friend and you won’t see it; he will be fussing and unsoothable until you realize that he hasn’t been feed in a long time; she will get a red bottom after being left in an undetected soiled diaper; he will get a fat lip after you tackled him to prevent him from running in front of a car.  I could go on and on.  You do the best you can do and when you fail you learn from it and forgive yourself for it.  You just have to be a good-enough mother not a perfect one.     

When I drove home from the hospital with our first born in the back seat, I was scared and in awe of the world around us.  Being in a hospital does that to you; it makes you feel like an alien on your own planet.  I was seeing the world through the eyes of a mother for the first time.  I was filled with worries that I had never had before. It is something that still plagues my life as a mother…. worry.  Suddenly every driver around me was lacking in skills and safety, every sneeze and cough sent shivers down my spine.  I worried: are my nipples ever going to get long enough for him to get a good latch; how many times has he peed; what color is his poop; what is a normal amount of spit up; am I ever going to be able to sleep normally again; how do I get this car seat into this grocery cart and will it stay; he’s not rolling over when all his peers are; how will I take care of him when I get sick . . . aaaahhhhh so much worrying!  My supervisor at work put it well, she said to me, “Now that you are a mother, you don’t even have the freedom to die.”  It was a funny way of relaying the feeling of someone’s life and survival being so connected to yours.  A mother’s worry can make you crazy.  I have had many moments as a mother when I need to take a step back and say, “How valid is this concern?  How important is it?  What does it mean?  Can I do something about this?”  And if it is valid and important and I can’t do anything about it, then I need to practice the art of letting go and giving over the worry to God or whomever might be willing to take it off my hands.  And this is my biggest lesson in being a mother – letting go. 

From the moment you learn that someone is growing inside of you and sharing your body with you, you are connected to this other being.  When you feel her move around, the flutter of a foot or the caress of a tiny hand as it swipes across your womb or when he curls up below your ribs - how hard it is to breathe and eat a normal size meal, you know that there is something going on that is bigger than you…bigger than you both.  When your body releases his and his releases yours and he enters this world, for a few moments he is still tethered to the inside of you and you understand the reality of this connection.  Then the cord is severed, ending something between the two of you.  When she drinks your milk with ease, you understand, this is the connection that sustains life.  You wake when she does, you try to sleep when he does, and you feel her pain when she crunches up with gas and want to cry when she does.  When he sobs as you leave for your first day back at work, you sob too.  Slowly you begin to realize that you must let go all of the time as a mother. 

You know this physically when you birth them, but then there are all the tiny letting gos that happen along the way.  When you leave her for the first time, when you move him to his own room or own bed, when they grow out of 3 to 6 month clothing and you realize they’ll never be that tiny again.  The first day of solid food is a letting go, the first roll that leads to a crawl that leads to walking and soon running away - they are all letting gos.  Letting go of the bottle, the pacifier, the crib, and the diapers.  Some are wanted and others unwanted.  The first day of school, you are sending him out into the world without you….how will he fair?  What will the world do to him?  What will he do to it?  It goes on: the voice change, the menstrual cycle, the driver’s license, the graduations, moving out of your home, college, the wedding.  All are movements away from those first flutters in your womb and movements toward something much more important. Your child’s self. 

Letting go not only happens with the physical act of your child growing up, but also might happen with any expectations that you have of yourself, your partner, your parents and family, and your child.  One of my least favorite pregnancy book titles is What to Expect When You Are Expecting.  As if there is map that we all follow on this journey. My favorite parenting book title is I Was a Really Good Mom Until I Had Kids.  The letting go happens with any expectations that you might have when you are “expecting” a child.  Let go of the perfect mom that you expected yourself to be.  Letting go of how you imagined your partner would be.  Letting go of what you expected your mother would be like with your children.  Letting go of what you thought your child might look like or what he would be interested in when he grows up or what career choice or boyfriend choice they might make along the way.  Letting go and giving it over to acceptance of what will be….will be.   

What is important is how you handle these moments of letting go, what you want to hold onto and what you willingly release.  The grace with which you embrace the growing up and letting go of your child will be what makes or breaks this experience of motherhood for you and your child.  With each letting go, I take a deep breath and tell myself, this is life and I must share this child with the world.  I gave him life and now I must let him live it.  

I wish you the best as you navigate this amazing journey. I am not aware of any other experience that will teach you as much about yourself as parenting does.

Embrace it,

Brooke