When Writing About Suicide or Mental Illness or Addiction

I stumbled on an excellent article from aportiaadamsadventure.wordpress.com in which the author discusses college training for journalists on handling a suicide story. The author is applying that learning to her fiction.

Below are a few excerpts from the article. You may read the complete entry here: http://aportiaadamsadventure.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/writing-about-suicide/#comment-520

An article from the Poynter Institute written a decade ago remains one of the best on the subject if you are interested in reading more, but this is the quote that I always keep in mind when this subject comes up (which thankfully, is not that often, but still happens more than it should):

Mental illness is almost always present in a case of suicide. To report on suicide without discussing the role of mental illness is like reporting on a tornado without mentioning the underlying weather conditions. Tornados don’t whip up out of nowhere, and neither does suicide.

***

Just because context helps when writing, Statistics Canada and Health Canada obviously follow this subject very closely, and their latest numbers are:

Suicide is a major cause of premature and preventable death. It is estimated, that in 2009 alone, there were about 100,000 years of potential life lost to Canadians under the age of 75 as a result of suicides.

Research shows that mental illness is the most important risk factor for suicide; and that more than 90% of people who commit suicide have a mental or addictive disorder.^1,2 Depression is the most common illness among those who die from suicide, with approximately 60% suffering from this condition.

***

The article writer is working on a fictional story set in the 1930’s. She asks readers for input about mental health support and treatment from the time. I reply to her request as follows:

Excellent article! You ask for insight from the 30’s. I’ll share a personal anecdote. I learned in my fifties about my maternal grandfather’s commitment to an insane asylum. I learned it by finding personal papers of my mother’s that referenced the event. My mother had them stashed away. Never in my entire lifetime had my mother told that story to me. Instead she had painted a picture for me of a talented man who was ahead of his time. From the same stash of papers, I learned my grandfather physically abused my grandmother. The societal code of the time was silence about anything untoward, especially if the family had any social prominence. So much so that long after my grandfather was dead, long after I was a married adult and a mother, my mother never mentioned the dark side or mental illness of my grandfather. I learned about it after my mother left her home, and I was cleaning out the place.

After sending that message, I recalled more about the story of my grandfather. It was set in the Great Depression. He was in the throes of losing the family dairy and farm. His wife died, leaving him to care for seven children from age 14 to a newborn infant, all while running a home milk delivery business (done from a horse drawn cart) and running a crop and dairy farm. It was in a time when a family grew their own food and preserved it, so a huge garden had to be tended and defended from pests, then harvested and put up. Kids had to get to school, be dressed and fed. The wee ones required care 24/7.

As my grandmother lay dying of cancer, my grandfather or my mother, the oldest child, injected grandmother with morphine to control her pain. I am uncertain about why he did it exactly, but my grandfather began using his wife’s morphine himself and became addicted. In the 1930’s, my grandfather’s addiction was treated as mental illness in the insane asylum. (I’m sure there’s more to the narrative that I will never know.)

All of this tragic story was hidden from me by my mother. She did tell me that after my grandmother’s death, grandfather fell apart and abandoned the farm and the children. She said my grandmother had been the glue that held the family together. After her death, the children tried to operate the farm, but, as children, they failed. Ultimately, in the midst of depression, the children were split up and sent to various homes, where they were grudgingly taken in and resented as another mouth to feed in what were difficult times.

The point is there is always a backstory to suicide. Often it is mental illness or addiction. And there is often a backstory to addiction and mental illness, too. When writing about the subject of suicide, mental illness or addiction, be sure to make the reader aware of the backstory, since it provides context for the current event you are writing about.

Kid’s Stuff 2–Homemade Suet Cakes for Birds

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I plan a Kid’s Stuff book sometime in the future. Here’s another project from the book suitable for the school-aged child. It’s a perfect activity for the Christmas break from school. It keeps idle hands busy, AND it teaches children about the winter life of birds.

In winter, natural foodstuffs for birds can be sparse. When the thermometer dips, birds need a source of fat, carbohydrates and protein to provide calories for warmth, flight fuel, and general health. Suet cakes offer a source for all three at one convenient location.

Children benefit from this project by:

• engaging in a useful activity
• learning about other creatures who share space with them on the earth
• helping birds survive in winter
• learning about bird nutrition
• identifying the birds that show up to eat the suet
• Understanding the thermodynamics of changing a solid to liquid (melting suet) and returning the same to a solid (freezing the suet cake)
• following the directions in the recipe
• working cooperatively with you to complete a project

The first item you need is a feeder. The hanging wire cage type of feeder, with an opening door on one side for reloading, is readily available where bird seed is sold. Or you can recycle (another child benefit) an aluminum pie pan to use as a flat surface feeder.

The second item you need is wax paper to wrap the finished product for freezing. You may substitute freezer wrap or other food wrapping material if wax paper is unavailable. Scotch tape is useful for sealing the package ends.

Ingredients list

• jar of peanut butter (creamy or chunky)
• 1-2 lbs beef fat (see the butcher at your grocery store). Any bits of beef still attached to the fat offer a source of protein, but you want the fat as clean of large pieces of meat as possible
• 1 C flour (if you have old flour that has gotten buggy, that is perfect for this project)
• 1 C corn meal (ditto on the “buggy” advice above)
• Sunflower seeds or mixed birdseed
• Raisins and/or finely chopped apple or cranberries

Assemble a square cake pan or small rectangular casserole dish, a large mixing bowl, a measuring cup and a large spoon for mixing the dough. Spray or wipe the pan surface lightly with oil to make it easy to remove the finished suet cake.

Instructions

Melt the beef fat, using a large pan over medium to low heat. You do not want the oil from the fat to sizzle. (Warning:  closely supervise your child to prevent the child from getting burned.)

When the beef fat is melted, add the contents of the jar of peanut butter to the fat and stir until mixed well. Turn off the heat under the pan.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, cornmeal and chopped fruit. Carefully pour the hot, melted fat into the dry mix and stir, adding the seeds to help thicken the dough. You want a finished consistency of thick cookie dough. Set aside and cool until fingers can safely touch the soft dough.

Press the suet cake dough into the cake pan. Let it cool thoroughly. Slice it into rectangular blocks, sized to fit the suet cage feeder. Wrap the block in wax paper, tape it closed, and freeze until you are ready to put a block into the feeder.

Response to Forever Young Song Prompt

Forever Young

by Fay Moore © 2012

The halls smell like urine—stale urine, gone rank in the heat, ground into the cheap linoleum tiles laid decades ago when this building was new and this neighborhood was a good place to live. A wire cage surrounds the single light bulb illuminating the dingy corridor. Cecily pulls the door to the apartment shut behind her as she leaves. The soles of her shoes stick to the floor with every step.

Cecily cringes as she thinks of her mother, drunk and in the bedroom, lying under some guy. The grime in the halls doesn’t make her cringe. She’s used to that. She should be used to her mother’s whoring, too.

Her mother puts out for anyone who will pay her twenty bucks. She collects the money in an envelope in her dresser drawer. Momma always worries out loud about having enough money to pay the rent when the superintendent comes around. If the money isn’t there, the superintendent gets ugly. One time, when Momma didn’t have all the rent money, Cecily saw the man shove Momma to her knees. When he grabbed Momma by the hair of her head and fiddled with his zipper, Momma yelled for Cecily to run away, which she did. She made it to the bottom of the stairs.

That’s where she met Guido. He saw her crying and pulled her to safety inside his apartment.

Guido lives on the first floor. He’s older than Cecily by a decade. The apartment belongs to his grandmother, who has lived there forever. She’s got rent control, Guido says, so it doesn’t cost much to live there, so long as his grandmother doesn’t move away—or die. His grandmother is old, blind and crippled, so she stays in her room, playing funny sounding music from when she was young. Guido lives in the apartment, too. He sleeps on the couch. He takes care of his grandmother as best he can. He doesn’t have a regular job. He sells weed in the alley beside the apartment building, so he’s got pocket money.

To Cecily, Guido is fun. He takes her to the corner deli and buys her stuff. He tells her she is pretty.  Today he says he has a surprise for her. He says he’s going to make her a star.

Cecily doesn’t believe him about the star thing. That’s just how Guido talks. He’s always making things up about what he’s going to do when he doesn’t have to take care of his grandmother anymore. He says he is going into business and make lots of money.

Guido shows Cecily the kind of car he’s going to buy when he’s rich by pointing to advertising banners on the sides of the city buses. He wants a black Chrysler 300 with spinner hubcaps and leather seats. Cecily thinks it’s funny because Guido doesn’t have a driver’s license. Guido says he doesn’t need one: he knows how to drive. Cecily knows he steals cars sometimes to earn a few bucks.

When Cecily reaches Guido’s apartment, he’s excited. He has set up extra lamps without any shades on tables around the sofa. The room is really bright with light. He’s talking fast about making movies and selling them on the Internet. He tells Cecily he’ll pay her to act in his movies. She’ll be captured on film, forever young, like Halle Berry or Jennifer Hudson. She listens to him, thinking this is more of his big talk. Then he brings out a small digital video camera and sets it on a makeshift camera stand. He explains that all Cecily has to do is take off her shirt, then her pants, then her underwear while he takes her picture. He’ll pay her twenty bucks.

Cecily isn’t listening to Guido any more. In her head, she is seeing her mother down on her knees, crying out for Cecily to run. Cecily listens to the words of her mother and runs out of Guido’s apartment. She doesn’t know where she’s going, but she doesn’t look back.

Writing About the Death of a Child

Unless one has lost, or is losing, a child to death, one will find it difficult to portray what that experience is really like. I tried and couldn’t do it.

I learned something about myself during the exercise. I couldn’t conjure a meaningful tale. I couldn’t capture the essence. I tried to describe the moment between a dying child and the child’s mother at the instant when conversation turns to the child’s wishes and thoughts about the child’s own death.  I failed.

Maybe it is because I am a mother that I sabotaged the tale-telling. I don’t want to imagine the horror and pain of losing my child. And, worse, I don’t want to imagine being a dying child.

As I am writing this, I am remembering an episode from my early teens. I lost a classmate to cancer. I remember a couple of other kids and I went to visit the dying girl in the hospital. She made it easier on us during the visit by being upbeat.

She and I were not close friends. However, we shared an interest in dodgeball and softball pick-up games on the playground. Often we were the only girls on the field. It was early enough in puberty that we were physically matched to, and sometimes exceeded, the prowess of the boys. Our pride bonded us together.

I forgot–or blocked–that particular experience from my childhood when I was writing. It would have helped to call on my vague memories of those hospital conversations with my friend. I could have used my memories to reconnect to my internal conflict and despair. I could have tapped into the confusion I felt as a child who was getting a premature lesson in death and dying.

Instead, I choked. I went no deeper than re-mixing the song lyrics with a wooden spoon.

Subconsciously, I did tap into the nobility my friend exhibited. She was matter-of-fact about her lot. Like the character in my story, she focused her energies on making those who spent time with her feel better at a time when they felt awful. She lived her last weeks with grace.

In that small way, my story honored my friend. She died too young.

Response to “If I Die Young”

Sorry, gang. The story I wrote for this prompt got removed after posting. I was choking on a gag response, the story was so bad. Better to draw a blank and have no story, I decided, than to post one that was forced and contrived. Hence, I used the delete function.

Response to C. J. Gorden’s KAPOW

Self-described struggling writer C. J. Gorden uses a “Kick Ass Prompt of the Week,” a.k.a. KAPOW, to help writers produce. On July 30, the KAPOW  was to write a first person piece in the voice of a child. My response is below.

Brat

by Fay Moore © 2012

See that girl standing under the tree? That’s my spoiled brat sister. Our housekeeper always says my sister’s the baby.

“You can’t expect her to do this or do that. She’s the baby.”

I get so sick of hearing it. If my sister takes my softball and leaves it in the rain, I’m not supposed to get mad at her because she’s the baby. If she comes in my room without permission, I’m supposed to be happy about it because she’s the baby. If she follows me and my friends to the ball field, I’m supposed to watch over her because she’s the baby.

Baby, schmaby. She’s a brat. Why can’t she play with that curly-haired girl next door? Why is she always following me around? She always wants to go where I go. Me and my friends don’t want her following us.

If she’s along, we can’t sneak up on my teacher Miss Marple’s house and peek at Miss Marple in her bathing suit. The wood fence around her swimming pool has four knot holes close together that are just the right height for us boys to press our eyeballs to and watch Miss Marple rub suntan oil on her legs and stuff. Miss Marple can’t see me, but I can sure see her. If that brat sister of mine is along, I can’t sneak a peek because she would tell on me, sure enough. Mom would ground me for a week.

And I can’t throw eggs at cars either. Or rub limburger cheese on door knobs. Man, that’s fun.

We boys rub limburger on old Mrs. Lender’s door knob. We know she gets home from work around four o’clock, so we hide in the tree fort across the street and wait. You should’ve seen her face the first time we did it. When her hand hit that slimy stuff, she jerked back like she was snake bit. Then she put her fingers to her nose and smelled them. Whew. Her expression was priceless. No way we could get away with cheesing anybody with my sister around.

Dad would take me by the shirt and walk me over to Mrs. Lender and make me apologize. Then he’d make me clean her door knob and wash down the door. Next I’d get stuck cutting her grass for a month, for free.

And it would all be because of my stupid sister. Yeah, she’s a brat.

C.J. Gorden’s blog can be found here: http://cjgorden.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/mondays-kick-ass-prompt-of-the-week-kapow-7/#comment-101