Day 672

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Scarlett Lewis is Jesse’s mother. Jesse, her youngest son, six years of age was one of the twenty children murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Brave Jesse helped save the lives of many of his classmates by encouraging them to run while he stayed behind to protect his teacher—both he and his beloved teacher were killed.

Before going to school, in what may have been a premonition of the day’s tragedy, six-year-old Jesse wrote on his home chalkboard, “Nurturing Healing Love.” Working through her grief in the midst of the emotional devastation felt by all of the parents who lost children, Scarlett embraced Jesse’s words and consciously chose a different way to manage her distress. While many parents vented their pain through anger, blame, and overwhelming grief, Scarlett went on an alternate path by deciding to consciously choose Love to come to terms with this heinous crime.

To send her message into the world, Scarlett founded the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation (http://www.jesselewischooselove.org) whose stated mission is, “To create awareness in our children and our communities that we can choose love over anger, gratitude over entitlement, and forgiveness and compassion over bitterness.” The foundation’s goal is to help manifest a more peaceful and loving world. Scarlett’s efforts in advancing Love to resolve the world’s problems has become her path to healing.

Day 667

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Clarke Carlisle, a former footballer speaks openly about his experience of depression and two failed suicide attempts. His honesty comes through very clearly in this film titled:

‘The Silence of Suicide’
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f86rz60Jcso&feature=youtu.be)

As he speaks, it breaks my heart to watch the tears roll down this handsome young man’s cheeks. I admire him for normalising vulnerability. He shares how depression makes one believe that everyone would be better off without them. He thinks that the stigma associated with suicide comes from the ‘mystery’ associated with the condition. Those left behind search within themselves and ask many questions but there are no answers. It is impossible to not personalise it. That makes it very hard for us to talk about it as individuals. Because it is so hard to speak about suicide for us as individuals, it is the same for us as a society. But it is essential and urgent for us all to talk about suicide. It is of paramount importance.

How can we encourage people to do this?

By ‘normalising’ it.
Statistics say that 1 in 4 people suffer from mental ill-health. However this may be a gross underestimation as many people are not very aware of how they feel. They may not really know and recognise their feelings.

His advice for anyone who might be thinking of ending their life is – Tell someone. Tell anyone. Once you do that, the power of that thought over you diminishes.

Day 661

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Recently, there has been heaps and heaps of bad news from all around the world. The planet seems to be engulfed in hatred and tragedy of one sort or another. The terror attacks in Istanbul, Baghdad, Nice, Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Germany and Japan, the horrific and unending war in Syria spilling over into other middle eastern countries, the military coup in Turkey, the people vs authorities violence in America and of course, the devastation for many due to the uncertainty caused by Brexit!

What happens when these events are played over and over, round the clock on radio and TV? How does that affect our psyche?

As humans we focus on the bad stuff. Threat information activates the fear system that works to shut down the rational part of our brain. In that fearful state we look out more bad news. Elaine Fox at the University of Oxford says, ”The sense of immediacy of 24-hours rolling news means the brain is saying ‘this is a real threat to me’.”

The vividness of the images can skew our sense of risk. Even if the possibility of us being involved in an incident of that nature is miniscule, it seems disproportionately large. This induces a state of stress which is constant.

The good news is that we adapt. Whatever the news, we get habituated to it.

A landmark study done in 1978 by Brickman et al showed that after 2 years, lottery winners and people paralysed in accidents showed little change in overall happiness, getting used to their new state. Other studies have shown similar results confirming that severe outcomes do not have as great an impact as might be expected.

Day 656

Posted by kidsaregifts20

While sorting out my clothes and listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning, it hit me that life will never be the same again. Some of these clothes will never be worn by me again. They are not me. They are what I used to be but now everything is different. My body and my being are different. The planet I live on now is different. There is a huge chasm between where I live now and where I lived when Saagar was alive. Every incident in the past belongs either on this or that side of the chasm. Everything has happened in relation to that one incident – before or after. And there is no way of going back to the planet before.

The landscape on this planet used to be bare, completely lacking in possibilities, lifeless. But it is slowly changing. It is being nourished by meaningful, authentic and loving relationships. All dead-heads are being removed and vegetation carefully pruned of nonsense. What remains is real. It is guided by a sense of purpose. It is a space that allows for expression and creativity. Most of all, it works on the love principle. There are possibilities. Everything here is tinged with the absence of Saagar yet, it is a place of hope. The essence of the human being that was Saagar is here for everyone. His friend said in her e-mail, “We missed our Saagar dearly at graduation. We wish he — and you — could have been there, of course, and in a way it almost felt wrong that we should get to graduate without him. But all of us carried his memory with us, and without him we wouldn’t have grown and learned the way we did (and still are). I miss him every day.’

There wasn’t a penny to his name and yet he was rich enough to enrich all our lives.

It is for us to discover the potential for pure joy. It is here, on this planet.

Day 650

Posted by kidsaregifts20

A brain surgeon, Paul Kalanithi got diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at the age of 36. Suddenly he found himself on the other side of the table. He wrote a ‘rattling, heartbreaking, beautiful’ book about his life as a doctor and then as a patient before he died. It is called “When breath becomes air’. In it he tactfully dissects the walls that exist between doctors and patients. Having found myself on either side of the table – first as a physician and then as the mother of a severely ill child, I can completely relate with this excerpt below.

“The reason doctors don’t give patients specific prognoses is not merely because they cannot. Certainly, if a patient’s expectations are way out of the bounds of probability – someone expecting to live to 130, say, or someone thinking his benign skin spots are signs of imminent death – doctors are entrusted to bring that person’s expectations into the realm of reasonable possibility. What patients seek is not scientific knowledge that doctors hide but existential authenticity each person must find his or her own. Getting too deeply into statistics is like trying to quench a thirst with salty water. The angst of facing mortality has no remedy in probability.”

“I had to face my mortality and try to understand what made my life worth living and I needed Emma’s (my doctor’s) help to do so. Torn between being a doctor and being a patient, delving into medical science and turning back to literature for answers, I struggled, while facing my own death to rebuild my own life – or perhaps find a new one.”

I cannot imagine what one’s options would be when diagnosed with a severe/ terminal mental illness. Saagar was unable to access his own life as he knew it and perhaps chose to find a new one.