On Cory Monteith's death: 4 things I've learned about addiction

FREE IMAGES

More than a week has passed since the sudden and untimely death of Glee star Cory Monteith. I've been debating how I wanted to -- or even if I wanted to -- address his death on So About What I Said. As more and more information comes to the surface, it seems as though everyone has an opinion, and I wondered if I could even add anything worthwhile to the already crowded conversation.

But then I realized the important value of speaking up. Because where taboo topics like these are concerned, not being a voice in the conversation is far worse than keeping things to yourself. And besides, addiction is something that hits very close to home for me. I've seen it take over loved ones, and unfortunately, have seen the heartbreaking wreckage it leaves in its wake. For better or for worse -- some days, I'm not sure which one -- addiction has touched me and changed me, just like it's touched and changed millions of people's lives around the world. So in the spirit of sharing, here are four things I've learned about addiction...

Addiction is an evil beast
Addiction is insidious. It sneaks up on you, and sometimes, you don't even see it coming. And, it has this tricky little habit of disguising itself as something beautiful, something you need -- maybe even something innocent. It lures you in and makes you believe that it's something you can't live without. Until, well, you really can't live without it. It's got a mind of its own. It knows all your weaknesses and pounces on them every chance it gets. It knows all the right words to say and makes sure those are the only words you actually listen to.

Addiction not only affects you...it affects everyone around you
This is the lesson I've learned all too well over the years. Addiction is a family disease, one made up of sleepless nights, pleas and lots of worrying. Because addiction is like a pebble thrown into the sea: The ripple effect can be felt for miles as addiction tries to get its tentacles around everyone and everything it possibly can. You wonder how you all got to this point. You wonder what the future will hold. And sometimes, you're even scared of the future. You'd do anything in your power to help your loved one, but eventually, you realize...

Addiction needs boundaries
You can't live for someone else. You can't let someone else's addiction control your life. You need to establish some firm boundaries -- and stick to them. It's so important to take care of yourself. This can be the most difficult thing in the world to do. Trust me, it's so easy to become enmeshed in someone else's disease, especially if you think you can solve all their problems, but that's just it. Ultimately, it's not your problem. It's not your disease. Of course, you can be there for support, but at the end of the day, the road to recovery has to be walked by the person facing the addiction.

Addiction doesn't have to mean a death sentence
There is help out there. Lots of it, actually. And unlike years ago, there is less of a stigma associated with addiction these days. There's no shame in admitting you need help. In fact, asking for help shows far more strength than trying to battle it all on your own. Taking the first step is painful, but it's necessary.

If you've been affected by addiction, friends, what other lessons would you add to the list? What helped you? And if you're still in the throes of it, whether you're suffering or know someone who is, my heart is with you. xoxo

[Photos via We Heart It]

My Father's Suicide: 5 questions I'd ask him

FREE IMAGES

After March, the summer months have always been pretty emotional since my father died. I've seen some 10 Father's Days come and go in June, and 10 of his birthdays have passed every July. Sometimes I feel like those two months are like giant red bulls eyes on the calendar of my life, so every year I try to brace myself for them. Well, brace myself as best as I can, I suppose. Because let's be honest: These days are never as easy as we'd like them to be. We can't just wave a magic wand and have them magically disappear. We have to face them, whether we want to or not.

This year, I've been thinking more about what our life would be like if my father was still alive. Part of me knows that it's sort of futile to let my mind wander there, sure, but another part of me just seems to drift there naturally. Especially on Father's Day, I'd see all these women with their fathers, and it made me think: What are they talking about? Is the father imparting lots of fatherly wisdom? Is the daughter fully appreciating what is happening right before her very eyes? What would I do if I were somehow in that position again? I'm not quite sure, but there are five questions I'd definitely ask him...

Did you really think we'd be better off without you here?
That's what he hinted at in his suicide note (I've only been able to read the suicide note a few times...), and this is one of the biggest issues I've wrestled with over the last decade. It's hard to wrap your head around the fact that your own father would consciously choose to leave you, that he'd actually want to leave his family behind.

Do you miss us?
Wherever he is, I often wonder if my father thinks of us or misses us. Is he watching over us? I like to think that he does miss us -- and maybe even regrets the choice he made. My father was such a family man, so it's hard for me to imagine him not missing us. As angry as I've been with him, I've always missed him deep down.

Why didn't you try...at least a little longer?
OK, this one may reflect my anger just a bit, but it's those "Why" questions of grief that linger the longest. Why couldn't he hold on awhile longer? Why didn't he tell us he was feeling so desperate? We would have dealt with it together, facing whatever challenges were head. Why...why...why?

What life and love advice would you give me?
The longer he's gone, the more I realize that there are so many things I won't be able to get my father's advice on. I won't be able to ask him for career advice. I won't be able to ask him what he thinks of potential Mr. Melissa Blakes. I won't even be able to roll my eyes at all that fatherly advice I'm sure he'd give me. It all leaves me feeling, well, a bit cheated. Those are experiences I was counting on having, and now I won't. My heart can't help but feel a bit empty.

Are you proud of me?
I don't care what people say: No matter how old you are, you'll always want your parents to be proud of you. To some degree, you'll always want their approval, that metaphorical gold star, if you will. I often wonder if my father would have read my blog and what he would have thought of my work. Would he like it? I miss having his positive, encouraging presence in my life.

As more time goes by, more questions will no doubt pop up, and although I'll never be able to definitively answer them, maybe just giving voice to them is therapy enough for now. At least some part of me will be able to work through them just by setting them free. After all, I'm sure of one thing: Holding all those emotions in and suppressing them is entirely unhealthy. I know I don't want that. And neither would my father. xoxo

[Photos via Le Love and We Heart It]

My Father's Suicide: On symbolic dreams

FREE IMAGES

Dreams are funny things, aren't they? They can come in all forms -- small, medium and large. They can be extremely vague or precisely vivid. Or they can be random or full of meaning. I never used to put much stock in those full-of-meaning sorts of dreams -- well, that is until my father died. Since then, I've had several telling dreams that seem to cut through all those surface emotions that try to cloud everything during the day.

Just a few days ago, in fact, I had one of those dreams. In my dream, I was meeting with a new therapist, and I was telling everything that's happened in the last 10 years. After I told the exhaustive story, I showed my therapist a photo of my father. She took one look at it and gasped.

"This is the father of another one of my patients," she said. "He died two years ago." As it turned out, my father had another family (FYI, he didn't really have another family somewhere...) and faked his own death in 2003. He went to live with them until he died two years ago.

I woke up utterly shocked at just how vivid the dream actually was. It played out like a movie -- all those details, the dialogue, how perfectly and accurately it captured my life. I remember being so mad in the dream because my father's other family got to spend so much more time with him. A whole eight years of memories that I never had the chance to make. It just wasn't fair. I felt cheated. I found myself thinking about the dream a lot over the last week. What did it mean? Did it even mean anything? Maybe I was reading too much into it; after all, we all know I have a tendency to over-analyze things. Maybe it was just one of those random dreams.

I'd love your expert opinions, friends. What do you think the dream meant? Do you have a lot of symbolic dreams? Do you over-analyze your dreams? xoxo

[Photos via We Heart It]

Family Photos: Memory bells

FREE IMAGES

For the last few years, my mom has led a grief group for students at her school who have lost parents. Sometimes, she'll come home and tell me about the lesson she did that week. Last week, she read the group the holiday classic The Polar Express and used the book as a launching pad to discuss grief. Sometimes, she told her students, we can start to feel like we're forgetting the loved one we lost, as if they're systematically being erased from our memory.

Well, enter these little bells. She had each student make one, and, as she explained, any time your loved one feels a million miles away, just ring the bell. It will remind you that they will always be with you in your heart. She also made one for Janelle and me, and it's are such a nice reminder of my father and my grandfather. I keep my little bell by my bed, and it makes me smile every time I look at it. Thanks, Mom! xoxo

Family Photos: The BEST Gramps in the world

FREE IMAGES

I was eating a bowl of Cheerios last night when it hit me: My Gramps (or Pops, as I've taken to calling him in the last few years...) won't be waiting for us to come visit him in the summer or during the holidays. I won't get to spend long, leisurely days with him while my mom and sister go dip their feet in the bay -- Pops watching Matlock with the volume at full blast while I surf the Web.

I won't get to listen to those stories from a generation completely foreign to me -- stories that opened a window into Pops' life. He grew up on the streets of Chicago with three brothers, and from what I can tell, he was a bit rebellious at times. He met my grandmother, fell in love and left for World War II in the span of just a few months.

But what I'll miss the most? That's easy. His love. How can you sum up someone who lived such an extraordinary life? I'm not exactly sure, but all I know is that the world is a better place because Pops was in it. He made a difference. He touched lives. He loved his family. But most importantly, he was loved by all who knew him. I love you, Pops, and will miss you every single day. Thank you for everything you've given me and for shaping the person I've become. I'll miss our days spent together... xoxo

P.S. More gifts from grandparents.

My Father's Suicide: Ten years ago

FREE IMAGES

My father died 10 years ago today. Wow, even typing that sentence seems a bit out of place for me. For the last few days, I didn't really feel like I was thinking much about his death, but of course, leave it to my trusty subconscious to connect the dots for me. I had a pretty telling dream about my father last night -- the first time I've dreamed about him in quite awhile. He was sick in my dream -- we all knew this -- and we all knew he was dying. We couldn't do anything. All we could do was stand there and watch.

 

My emotions have certainly run the gamut over the last decade, from numbness to denial to anger to confusion to sadness. And I've certainly shared my story with you all (thank you for always listening...), but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are some of my favorite photos of my father...

How could a decade's worth of life have happened without him? I miss you, Father. Every single day. I hope you know that. I hope you also know how thankful I am for the memories we made; I will hold them close to my heart and treasure them. Always. I love you, Father... xoxo 

Letters To My Future Husband: Letter #167.

FREE IMAGES

Dear Mr. Melissa Blake:

Here's a pretty straight-forward question, Sweetpea: At what point in our relationship did I tell you the story of my father? I'm not talking about those times he embarrassed me during my oh-so-very awkward teenage years or the stories about all the adventures my sister and I used to have in his office, which was in a really spooky basement. And I'm not even talking about he'd sit by my hospital bed and read me the newspaper as I recovered from surgery. Those times were wonderful, of course, and helped to define my childhood, but sometimes -- and well, more so lately -- I get to feeling like it's more about what defines you as an adult that ultimately helps you become the person you are meant to be.

 

Even more than my disability, I know my father's suicide has been my adult "defining moment." I know this. I suppose there's really no getting around it -- you can't swiftly deny it or easily push it under the rug because it will just jump right back out and get you. I'm tied to it for the rest of my life. I don't say this with a "woe-is-me" attitude. It's just a fact. It's a fact of life. It's a fact of my life. But I wonder when it becomes a fact of our life, of our relationship. When does it go from merely being a scar I carry on my heart to one of "those talks" that helps define our relationship and our future life together? Does that make any sense?

Now, I'm guessing I hold back a little bit at first. After all, this isn't the sort of story you can easily tell someone on the first date. It's not like you can seamlessly work it into the conversation somewhere between a discussion of our worst blind date and our dream job. And it's certainly not the sort of topic you can easily bring up over a romantic, relaxed candlelit dinner for two. Can you imagine us ordering appetizers in a quiet restaurant, and then I look you straight in the eyes and say, "So, there's this big part of my past that I haven't told you about..."

 

Yes, something tells me that won't work. So what will work? I'm not really sure as of right now in March 2013. Maybe I won't be sure until I meet you. Maybe I won't be sure until we go out a few times. Or, maybe I won't be sure until I can see us having a future together. Because I don't want to tell this story to just anyone; it's not the sort of nonchalant story you just tell someone when you're shooting the breeze with them. It's a pretty heavy story, you know? Believe it or not, I can be pretty guarded when it comes to this story sometimes. It's not a story I readily share with everyone (and yes, I'm aware of the irony where my blog is concerned...), and I have to feel extremely comfortable around the person if I'm going to share something so intimate with them.

But, you can be sure of one thing, Sweetpea: Telling you this story is definitely going to mean something. It's going to mean that I trust you with such an emotional and deep part of my life. I'll want to share my story with you because I'll want you to know who I am; I'll want you to know everything about me. I can't wait to tell each other our stories, Sweetpea. Until we meet... xoxo

[Photos via Le Love]

My Father's Suicide: On the big week

FREE IMAGES

Confession: I debated whether or not I wanted to post this today. Maybe part of me thought I could save my heart just a little bit of pain if I didn't make a big deal out of this week. Maybe I could somehow put a protective wall around my heart, shielding it from a week that will surely be a difficult one.

But that's a foolish notion, isn't it? To think that I have the power to easily distract both my mind and my heart -- as if I could just turn them off like a switch. It's a naive thought, really. Because I simply can't turn off my emotions, even if I wanted to. There's just no way I can turn them off in the face of something like this.

This week is most definitely not the time to be playing hide-and-seek with my emotions. After all, it's The Week. The week before everything changed some 10 years ago, before everything in my once-stable world began to crumble around me. At least, that's how I feel now about this week, the week before my father committed suicide on March 10, 2003.

Now, if you had asked me 10 years ago to describe this week, I would have painted you a very, very different portrait. Last week, I was telling my therapist that it all seems to come down to a matter of perspective. The 2003 me was so excited for this week. It represented the promise of a new beginning and the hope of a brighter tomorrow. After all, my father had just finished all of his chemo and radiation. No more going back and forth to the hospital every day. My father -- all off us, really -- had just been set free, and we couldn't be more thrilled, thankful and hopeful. We were certain that the cancer was gone for good and would stay gone for good.

And the 2013 me? Well, needless to say, she's not too excited about the upcoming week. She knows all too well what happened a decade ago and what's happened since. It's a lot to take in -- maybe something that can only be absorbed in very small doses.

Perspective can be a funny thing. You may think you're seeing something perfectly clear, and then, it's only years later that you look back and realize your supposed 20/20 vision was pretty off the mark. Looking back, I can't believe how differently I can view the week leading up to my father's death depending on the perspective I'm looking at it from. It's almost as if it changes your entire world view. How will I view this week in 10 more years from now? How about 20? I'm not sure, but look for more posts about my father throughout the week, friends! xoxo

[Photos via We Heart It]

My Father's Suicide: On my mother's strength

FREE IMAGES

My mother turned 57 last month. She turned 47 a decade ago -- two months before my father committed suicide. Deep down, I know it's a lesson in futility, but I can't tell you the number of times that I've played out conversations with my father in my head. And this year, right around her birthday, I found myself with a new topic on my mind.

We've all grown and changed and adapted since my father's suicide. We simply had no choice; it was something we had to do. One of the many things my father told us in his suicide note, which I've been able to bring myself to read only once or twice, was that my sister and I needed to take care of our mother. "She's going to need you," he instructed us.

It got me thinking: If only I could talk to my dad about this. There's so much I'd like to tell him. I figure it would go something like this...

 

Father, don't you realize just how utterly amazing and strong mom is? If only you knew all the things she's done -- by herself -- over the last 10 years. She sees every day as an opportunity to make a positive impact in the lives of her students. For the last several years, she has led a Rainbows grief group, helping and supporting students who are grieving the loss of a parent. She's singled-handedly created a safe and nurturing environment where Rainbows members are able to share their feelings open and honestly. Her genuine heart, leadership and sense of service has shown in her personal commitment to the community as well. She's long believed in the beauty of helping others and is always there to lend a helping hand, loving heart or sympathetic ear. It's hard to measure her dedication and love. It's something you'd have to see. It's in the smiles of her students after she's helped them with an extra tricky math problem. It's in the warm hugs -- and warm cookies -- given to the sick in the hopes of a speedy recovery. It's all these things -- things that take some people a lifetime to achieve -- that are all in a day's work for her.

 

And she did all these things by herself. Of course, Janelle and I were there for her, but she did them. Maybe partly because of you. Maybe partly in spite of you. But it's a shame that you're not here to see all the wonderful things she's done because, really, she's quite the dynamo.

That's the sort of conversation I've had floating around in my head for past month or so. Maybe my dad has been listening somewhere. Who knows? It's something to think about, isn't it? xoxo

New Feature: My Father's Suicide

FREE IMAGES

As I mentioned last week, this year marks 10 years since my father committed suicide. Even now, just typing that sentence makes me do a double-take -- sort of like that feeling you get when you're jolted awake from a nightmare at 3 a.m., and have to just lie still to catch your bearings for a few minutes because, for a split second, you forget where you are. You know you're in your bed, but for some reason, nothing looks familiar.

 

And then, the horrific details of the nightmare start coming back -- slowly at first, but faster as you remember more details. You know it was all a dream, but it seemed so real, as if you could reach out and touch it.

Well, friends, that's how this milestone anniversary has been for me so far. The only difference between my father's suicide and a bad dream is that his suicide is, well, all too real. And if I've learned anything in the last 10 years, it's that there's no "waking" up from the suicide of a loved one. You can't escape it. You can't run away from it. You can't hide it. Of course, you can try doing all these things, but you won't be able to keep up the pace for very long. Eventually, your emotions will catch up with you.

I've been thinking long and hard about the 10-year mark and how I want to process it and write about it. The more I think about things, the more I realize that my emotions probably won't be following a cute little time table this year. Sure, I could write about it on the actual anniversary -- March 10th -- and be done with it, never speaking of it for the rest of the year. But when you think about it, emotions don't work that way. You can't compartmentalize something so abstract.

 

So, in the name of continual self expression, I thought it would be a good idea to have a specific place to write about all the emotions that come up regarding my father's suicide -- all year long. As you know, my emotions have run the gamut in the past -- everything from anger to sadness to confusion. And guess what? All those varying emotions, I've learned, are healthy. They're all part of the process, and I'm equally excited (Is that the right word?) to see how my emotions will morph and change throughout the year.

What do you think, friends? Is there something specific you'd like to see me write about? Do you have any questions? You can read more about my father and my journey following his death here, here, here, here and here. xoxo

Letters To My Future Husband: Letter #165.

FREE IMAGES Dear Mr. Melissa Blake:

Well, it's the beginning of 2013. Honestly, I've dreading this year for some 10 years. I sometimes thought that if I didn't think about it, that if my subconscious could just push it to the side, then, well, it would be real. But, the calendar doesn't lie, so there's no denying this one.

This year marks 10 years since my father committed suicide.

Honestly, I don't even know where to begin when talking and writing and processing this sort of milestone, but I know you're always there to listen, Sweetpea, and I know you'll always be one of the people in my life that I can always turn to. I'm sure I'll be writing about this milestone throughout 2013 as new emotions come to the surface, but there's one thing you really, really, really (did I mention really...?) need to know: I never had a chance to become one of those girls, a cynic when it came to love and relationships.

It's true. My parents' marriage was a real-life Camelot of grand gestures and late-night back rubs and finish-each-others'-sentence conversations. When I was little, I half-thought everyone called their spouses animal names after my father began calling my mother ‘dear.”

And I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I had an equally idyllic relationship with my father. He was the one who held me along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, hunched over for hours as his backed ached and my feet mingled with the silk-like sand and crystal-clear water. He was the one who preferred to browse every window display in the mall and he was also the one who I saved a seat for on our living room couch every week for Dawson’s Creek.

I naturally thought my story would follow in their storybook footsteps. When I was younger, the fact that it didn't used to bother me to know end. I'd agonize over it back then. OK, there's still a bit of residual agonizing going on, but those moments are becoming fewer and far between now. I like to think my relationship with my father had something to do with that. What do you think, Sweatpea? Until we meet... xoxo

[Photos via We Heart It]