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.

Grieving Today. . .and Tomorrow

Last night I sold a good friend. Today I am grieving.

My husband is no longer able to ride. His horse has been in the field, unused, for two years– the period of time during which Hubby has had both knees replaced and his heart rebuilt.  The companion to his horse is Sugar Baby, an ancient but healthy mare that was my riding horse until last year, when she tore a muscle in a field accident.

During the course of Sugar Baby’s recovery, I bought a Racking Horse named Jake to ride. Jake is gaited and riding him is easier on my battle-worn body — I have a history of multiple falls from horseback, so my body is beat-up and sore.

But Sugar Baby will always be the best horse I ever had the privilege to ride. She and I were so well matched that she seemed to read my mind. She always did what was asked of her and always took care of me, her rider. On mornings, she would  stand in her spot at the fence and stare toward the front door of the house. The minute she saw movement, she would neigh, asking for breakfast. When I worked around the barn, Sugar usually supervised, nickering softly when I talked to her.

In these erratic times, we are like many other households in the United States. We have our own economic downturn going on in our personal finances. At the end of October, a reckoning of accounts demanded austerity. Logic dictated that two horses that were going unused must go.

Maintaining a horse is expensive. Beyond the cost of food and shelter, there are farrier, vet and grooming expenses. Not to mention winter blankets and the like.

So the mares were sold.

I don’t have the attachment to my husband’s horse Missy that I do to Sugar Baby. Even in advanced age, she is beautiful in my eyes. And she caught the eye of someone else. I find peace that she has a home. But I am grieving that she’s gone.

 

 

 

People that I Meet

About a week ago, I was reading Coco Ginger’s blog, specifically her post about her French press. In the post she referenced treating every guy she meets as a potential character in her next story.

That sentiment hit me like a sledge-hammer:  I, too, look at people I meet as candidates for characters. How dreadful. How delightful. It is a conundrum.

How about you? Are you eyeing up acquaintances, family and friends — and dreadful bosses — as novel fodder?

Lost Generation

Go into a local antique store or museum, and you’ll find old photographs and books. Even an old photograph album will fetch a price at an estate auction. People like to collect memories and look at them in print over and over. It is a tangible connection to the past.

In fact I have a collection of photographs that I keep on top of my breakfast table under glass. When family or friends visit, it’s one of the first places people look, to see what — or who — is new or review existing images. It is a kind of photo album over which coffee or conversation gets shared.

Today photographs and books are digital. (The same is true of much music.) The digital memorabilia is stored in electronic devices: computers, electronic readers, cell phones, CD’s. Seldom are the images or pages committed to paper.

When the decades roll around, will anyone wonder what great grandmother looked like? Will they care how she lived, what she wore, what she read or cooked, what music she listened to? Unless a family historian preserves the digital data, the means to satisfy a great grandchild’s curiosity will be lost. Digital devices change rapidly. Electronic data is corrupted with time. No one keeps photo albums, phonograph records or print book libraries any more.

Grandmother’s favorite recipe with her notes or Grandfather’s comments in his Guide to Trout Fishing – and the accompanying family photographs showing them engaged in these activities – will be vaporized when the iPhone falls in the soup or the thumb drive corrupts. CD content will get scrambled by children’s magnets. Even “the Cloud” will get hacked or compromised. Or the family historian will die of a sudden heart attack without passing on the storage location and password to the family history.

For all these reasons, I worry about this generation becoming the lost generation. Without tree books, paper photographs, and other paper documents to preserve images and stories about us, the proof we existed will be gone.

Oh, I forget. There’s always the landfill. . .thank God for archeology. We’ll be the generation defined by our trash.