Make no mistake: This is evolution in action. But what we evolve into is entirely up to us this time.
Read moreOn Being Surrounded and Feeling Alone
It’s been a tough couple of days. I’m going to whine in this post, so feel free to move right along if empathy isn’t your bag right now, baby.
If you do keep reading, please know I recognize there are bigger issues in the world than what I’m dealing with and far harder challenges to be faced. But this is where I’m at right now and writing through things – in the hopes that someone out there might read and be able to relate – has always been therapeutic for me. It’s why I’ve had a blog for almost 14 years.
Ready? Have a cup of tea? Maybe some cake? Okay. Here we go.
Last night, I paused a show in the middle of an action scene, turned to my wife and said, “You know what? I’ve never had more people around me, and yet I’ve never felt more alone in my life.”
I started crying. “I’m sorry,” I said, as she wrapped her arms around me. “It’s so stupid. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I know, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
Some really big things have happened in my life that are absolutely wonderful. I wrote a book that became an instant bestseller. It was longlisted for a coveted Canadian award (but did not make the shortlist – which is understandable, because there were some damn good books on that list.) I was named a Chatelaine 2019 Woman of the Year and in a few days, I’m going a luncheon in Toronto to be honoured as a Top 25 Woman of Influence of 2020. I’ve given more interviews and keynote addresses than I can count, and my calendar is so busy I’ve had to start running it by someone to make sure I don’t forget anything important. I have mostly positive interactions with a global audience of thousands every day.
This former young mom and high school dropout who struggled with addiction and still struggles with mental illness is now, I suppose, kind of a success story. The underdog made it. I’ve worked extremely hard to put a message of love and acceptance out into the world, and for what I believe are good reasons: To help other people, to save lives, to make sure my children grow up in a safer and more accepting world.
Despite all of this, I feel more isolated than ever.
It’s not that I don’t have people in my life. I do. I have a great support system. I’m just not using it.
The things I’m struggling with are hard to share with others. I’m worried they won’t understand – they won’t be able to relate. I’m worried they might judge me for being at the height of my career and still being unhappy sometimes. What’s there to be unhappy about, Amanda? Look at what you’ve done!
I sometimes think about what I would say if I did open up. Where would I start? How do you bring people into a situation you never saw coming and feel woefully unprepared for?
Do I start with the mounting pressure to be perfect, because if I say one wrong thing – or even one thing that could be misinterpreted – I’ll get hundreds or thousands of angry comments about it? (And sometimes memes calling for my death? Yeah, that happened.)
Do I tell them about the websites that steal photos of me in my bathing suit and call me a “fat pig”? Or the transphobic “book reviews” that are actually just hit pieces on my family?
Do I tell them about the accusations that constantly fly around that are completely unfounded, like how I’m just trying to “make money off the backs of [my] family members”? Or that I’m a narcissist who’s only in it for fame? Or how I have Munchausen by Proxy and am “making my child trans” for attention? Or that I’m not actually queer, I just have a really controlling spouse and I’m scared to leave? Or that she writes my tweets? Or I’m the one writing hers? That I’m making ridiculous amounts of money in… advocacy? (I can’t write that one without laughing. We would be homeless without my wife’s job.)
And it’s not just from outside the LGBTQ community. Sometimes it comes from within, too. I should just shut up. I shouldn’t have written the book. I don’t deserve any of the accolades. I don’t have the right to talk about my family. I’m an opportunist. I’m a mediocre writer who profited off her trans child and spouse so she could get famous.
I see it, I hear it, and it hurts.
How do you explain all of this to someone and have them understand, when you don’t even understand it yourself? That’s where the lonely feeling comes in. And that’s why I’ve been isolating myself more and more.
Today I woke up and didn’t want to get out of bed. I was exhausted from the crying and the anxiety I dealt with yesterday. But I made myself get up and go have breakfast with my wife and some friends. When we left the restaurant, the idea of going back home and crawling into bed beckoned. But I knew if I did it, I wouldn’t get back up again for hours. That I would be stuck in a dark mind with dark thoughts.
“Take me on an adventure,” I asked. “Let’s drive. I don’t care where we go. I just need to get out of my head.”
She took me to a little town outside of Ottawa. We went for coffee, looked at clothes, bought some locally made bubble bath and well over a pound of fudge. It was nice. It was needed. My mind and body, vulnerable and worn, both picked up a little.
I, of course, took pictures of the fudge before eating any of it.
“You know,” she said to me, as we were driving home on this unseasonably warm winter day. “You don’t have to do this work, babe. You’ve done a lot already. You can stop anytime.”
“I know,” I said. I think about it every time things get hard. I could just delete all my social media and walk away. I could choose to write fiction, or magazine articles on organization and the latest footwear trends. I could start a dog rescue or become a gardener. I could paint – I love to paint.
“But here’s the thing,” I said to my wife as we drove by snowy fields. “I hate how lonely it feels sometimes, but I love what I do. And I want to believe that it matters.”
When I got home, there were a bunch of new emails waiting for me from around the world. Some just thanking me for being there, either online or in the book they just finished reading. And some sharing personal struggles with coming out as queer or supporting a loved one who is. Whenever I reply to those, I tell the sender to just hold on, because it’s going to be okay. Even when it seems impossibly hard, it’s going to be okay.
That, I realized today, in this period of growth and change I’m experiencing, is advice I need to give myself. It’s going to be okay.
I’ve long since accepted I’m not going to make everyone happy, and that some people are going to think the worst of me, no matter what I do. But that doesn’t mean my heart won’t break – it just means I know it’s coming, and I have the tools ready to put it back together. That’s the gift of all of this. It’s building my resilience. It’s making me stronger – and that’s important in the work I do.
But even strong people need their people. So, I also decided today, it’s time I stop isolating and start reconnecting, to open up again.
I need to start celebrating my own successes. I want to feel the excitement. I haven’t been letting myself get happy about these big accomplishments – the ones that far exceed any dreams or expectations I’ve had of myself – because I know that somewhere out there, there are people who resent those accomplishments. How unfair of me to rob myself of that. I won’t do it any longer.
It’s time for me to shine again. I deserve this joy. I deserve happiness. And I don’t need to feel alone, because there are plenty of people who might not fully understand what I’m going through, but are waiting with tape and glitter glue and hugs, ready to help heal a broken heart.
Jog on, Imposter Syndrome. I'm a #1 Bestselling Author Now.
If I write this post without crying, it will be a miracle.
Today I woke up to the news that my memoir, my paper baby that I birthed just a few days ago, is #1 on the Canadian Non-Fiction bestseller list (and #5 stacked up against all non-fiction sold in Canada, which is pretty big!)
That’s… huge.
Like, I can’t even wrap my head around it. I’ve been trying to do so for hours, but mostly I just keep smiling, and then crying, and then smiling again, and then—
Ah, there are the tears. See? I knew they’d show up.
It was news I wasn’t expecting. This is a part of my story I had convinced myself would never happen. It happens to other people, not me. Not this girl.
And I was okay with that. I was more than okay with that. I wrote Love Lives Here to give people hope, and to help shift our world towards more acceptance for LGBTQ folks at a time when we desperately need that shift. That’s been my one and only goal all along.
Politically, the world is terrifying. Populism is running amok, fueled by a growing intolerance in our society. Much of that intolerance, I’m convinced, is based on fear: fear of what we don’t know and don’t want to know, what we refuse to look at because it’s easier to fear than to learn. Fear of immigrants. Muslims. Trans people. Others.
But they’re not others, and that’s what this book is about. I can’t speak on immigration or religion, but I can tell you there is nothing to fear and much to celebrate about trans people, gay people, bi people – anyone who lives their truth, really.
We are a house full of “others,” and our story is now out there in chapter form for people to learn from. It’s my hope it helps shift us from “other” to “part of.” That’s what good stories do, after all. They stay with us and they change us. That’s all my family and I have wanted to accomplish. We want to improve lives. We want to save them.
My friend Jenn made this for me because Jenn is amazing.
But hey, I’ll take number one on the bestseller list – even if it’s just for a week, a moment, a flash. I’ll take it because it gives me hope. It tells me that, if we try, we can eclipse the hate we’re seeing in our world today. We can outshine attitudes of intolerance and otherness. We can teach people by opening their hearts up. Love heals.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t think I’d live to see adulthood, let alone a published bestseller. And even in adulthood, I’ve grappled with depression so insidious it left me wondering just how long I’d be around to see another day.
Just yesterday, my anxiety was so high that I was begging my brain to just shut off, to let me have a few moments where my body wasn’t flooded with adrenaline and worry, to give me sweet release from the torture going on inside my head.
You are not worthy of any of this success, my brain was telling me. You are a fraud, an imposter. You are not good enough. You are nothing. Trauma makes me doubt myself all the time. That will likely never go away.
No, I fought back. I am worthy of good things. I am enough, just as things are, just as I am. I repeated this over and over until I believed it.
Eventually, my body and mind spent, I had a late afternoon nap and awoke with a calmer mind. Being in a good place made today’s news even sweeter. I’m able to internalize it today, to celebrate it without needing it to validate me as a writer or a human being. (Said celebration came in the form dancing around with my headphones and then ordering a half-sweet vanilla latte - in the size up from what I normally have, of course.)
I was THIS excited.
Today, I took a moment to tell younger me that holding on was the best thing she ever did. And adult me? She’s fierce. I’m proud of her.
Thank you to everyone in Canada and around the world who has purchased and borrowed and shared and talked about Love Lives Here. You made this happen. You made the story of family living through three coming out moments and two transitions something people are talking about and learning from.
And in the process, you also made an impossible dream possible for a once-broken little girl.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I wrote a book and I'm having big feelings about it
It’s Saturday evening and I’m lying in bed, a fan blowing away the warmth in the room like I’ve been trying to blow off this anxiety all day. It’s been a challenge.
The truth is, I’ve been anxious for weeks, the feeling growing as the end of month grows nearer. I can’t shake it, despite being on anti-anxiety medication, going to the gym, talking to loved ones and all the other tricks that usually work for me.
I’m not sleeping much, forcing myself to eat even half of what I usually do, and I have three engrossing novels on the go that I can’t seem to focus on. I’m having heart palpitations – a sign of too much stress, of being overwhelmed. But I don’t need that reminder. I feel it all the time.
It’s the sign of something big happening, and me needing to embrace it – even if it scares me.
*****
My grandparents used to have a farm on Prince Edward Island, and I would visit almost every summer. The upstairs floor had a library, its dark walls lined with books. I would take two or three to my room with me each week, devouring them as the sun set, and falling asleep when it was too dark to make out the words on the page any longer.
It was in that library and bedroom beside it that I realized I wanted to be a writer.
I loved what writers could do – the places they could take me; how they could make me feel such intense emotions with their words. Whenever I finished a book, I would examine everything about it, including the publisher’s emblem. The little sailboat. The little penguin. The vivid colours.
Maybe I would write a book, someday. And maybe there would be a little emblem on my book, too.
I hoped it would be the penguin. I really liked the penguin.
My grandmother was a writer, with a dark wood desk and a typewriter in that big, beautiful farmhouse. She would walk the orchard to find her best ideas. She would submit her short stories everywhere, and even had a couple of them published. “If you keep writing, Amanda,” she would tell me, “You’ll get published one day. I know you will.”
My grandparents are both gone now, but I wish they were here today to see what’s about to happen. Especially my grandma. I thought of her the first time I had a meeting with Penguin Random House Canada and we talked excitedly about the memoir I had just started putting together. I thought of her when I signed my contract with the little penguin at the top of the page – the same one I used to stare at and wonder “What if?”
Dreams really do come true. And my grandma would be so proud.
I wrote a book. An entire book! And this week, it’s being published and shipped all over the world. The early reviews are fantastic. The buzz has exceeded my wildest expectations.
But this isn’t just any book – although, frankly, any book is a big accomplishment! This one is extra special because it’s about my incredible family and all the things we’ve gone through. It’s about love and mistakes and hope and heartbreak and fumbles and wins. It’s about acceptance and resilience and bravery and champions. It’s about a community that gets so much hate and not nearly enough love – a community two of my family members are a part of it.
My family gave me their blessing to write this, cheered me on throughout, and made big time and financial sacrifices so I could primarily dedicate myself to it for two whole years.
And boy, did I write it. I poured my heart into every word. I cried. I laughed. I stood up from the desk and walked away, barely able to breathe from the pain of reliving some of our hardest moments. Shame wormed its way into me as I recounted my flaws and errors. But I needed to tell the world about those, too. You needed to see it all, I figured, to know how we got here. That sometimes it took me a while, as growth often does.
It’s so fucking scary to put your soul out there, laid bare for the world to see. I am now, more than ever, up for judgment. But what scares me more is that my family is, too. My beautiful, strong, atypical family, who only want to live their lives free of prejudice. They will be judged simply for being who they are.
But it’s their hope, as it’s mine, that more people will choose to learn and grow than linger in judgment and hate.
*****
My anxiety is justified. This is big – really big. I have to believe it’s worth it.
We change the world one story at a time. This is the story I wrote. Our story. If you read it, I hope you like it. And if you like it, I hope you share it with the people in your life who might need to read it, too.
Once upon a time, a little girl dreamed of writing a book. Then, she did. It’s called Love Lives Here: a Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family.
And maybe, if she’s lucky, it will help heal the world.
Anxiety be damned. Here goes nothing.
I Hope You Get to Know a Queer Person in 2019
This year, I hope you get to know a LGBTQ person.
I don’t just mean by reading our blogs (like you’re doing right now), although that’s a solid start. Reading our work, listening to our podcasts and watching our videos are all great ways to learn more about our lives, struggles and victories, and why we’re still fighting for acceptance today.
But that’s just one side, one dimension of who we are. And as we know, no person, no group of people, is one-dimensional.
If this is all you see of the LGBTQ+ community, your view will be limited. And that’s where the problem starts. That’s when we begin hearing from some of you that we’re too political, too needy, too demanding.
Some of you resent us because you only see this side. Some of you think we’re just attention-seeking. Some of you, even today, think we’re mentally ill. And even in some of the freest countries in the world, those beliefs fester, leading to talks – and even attempts – at the highest political levels of removing our rights to be who we are.
And that’s why, more than anything, I hope you get to know us this year. Doing so can change your life and ours for the better.
I hope a lesbian couple moves into your neighbourhood. I hope they walk their kids to school at the same time as you walk yours, and that your children take turns splashing in the puddles after a rainstorm. I hope you all shout out “don’t get your new clothes muddy!” at the same time and share a laugh about it. You’re just two families raising a bunch of messy kids and overworking your washing machines. Their “lifestyle” is the same as yours.
I hope the guy you talk to at the bus stop every day tells you about his husband. Not now, not while you’re first getting to know each other, but organically, after many chilly mornings complaining about the weather and how long the commute is. I hope he drops this little tidbit into a conversation once he’s become a regular side character in your life and you look forward to seeing him every day. You miss him when he’s not there. Your public transit game is lacking without your sidekick. That’s when I want him to tell you, so that it doesn’t change a thing. He’s still your bus stop buddy, holding his travel mug and waving as you round the corner every day.
I hope your teenager brings home a friend you’ve known since first grade – a kid who’s sat at your kitchen island more times than you can count – and they tell you this friend is now going by a different name and pronouns. I hope you see the fierce support and loyalty in your child’s eyes, daring you to say something she might have to defend. And in that moment, I hope you can see this is still the same kid and these are still the same friends. And as the months go on, as the kid who’s come to every one of your daughter’s birthday parties transitions happily, thriving in a way you’ve never seen before, you realize there is no “trans ideology”, just people becoming their most authentic selves.
I hope the person in your evening art class, the one who’s still struggling with English but getting better all the time, tells you they came to this country fleeing persecution as a non-binary person, and that all they want is to treated like everyone else. And I hope you do exactly that, while taking stock of how important your country’s human rights are, and how they must be protected.
I hope there’s a new child on your son’s hockey team this year – one you know used to play in the girl’s league and is now playing with the boys where he knows he belongs. As you watch his parents cheering from the sidelines, hugging their son as he steps off the ice, cracking jokes with other families and bringing extra snacks they offer to anyone who’s hungry, I hope you realize affirming their trans child isn’t abusive as you sometimes hear ignorant people declare; it’s exactly what they should be doing, and what you would do in their situation, now that you see that love in action.
Maybe it’s your best friend coming out and terrified you won’t accept him, or a new work colleague with a bisexual flag pinned proudly on her backpack. Maybe it’s the server at your favourite Sunday brunch spot or the dog trainer who came highly recommended. Your doctor or dentist. Your pastor or local scout leader. Whoever it is, I hope you get to know them, or if you already do, see that nothing has changed by finding out who they love or who they are.
Because it’s only by seeing how alike we are that you’ll understand we’re not lifestyles or ideologies – we’re people, just like you, with lives and loves and losses, horrors and happenstances and happiness, frustrations and families and friends.
We don’t want anything special from you, we just want you to treat us like everyone else. And if you take the time to see there’s nothing to hate or fear, I know you’ll do exactly that. Connection is how we break down barriers that don’t need to be there.
So, may this be the year we get to know each other.
I’ll bring snacks.
Amanda Jette Knox is a writer, speaker and LGBTQ advocate. Her upcoming book Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family (August 2019 by Penguin Random House Canada) is now available for pre-order in Canada, the US and the UK.
It's Not "Abuse" to Support a Trans Child
I’m the parent of a trans child, and I’ve been called abusive for believing and supporting her more times than I can count.
Alexis came out over four years ago. She was 11 at the time, a depressed and anxiety-riddled child who had tried hard to live as a boy, to be just like her two brothers, for her entire young life. Once she was able to find the right words, she told us she wasn’t a boy, but rather a girl who was tired of trying to be something she’s not. We listened. We supported. We affirmed.
What does that look like?
Well, it looks like giving your child the opportunity to explore who they are.
It looks like listening and following their lead, not pushing or forcing them into your own definition of who you think they are.
It looks like getting them the right professionals to talk to, especially when you know puberty is either happening or about to happen and that it’s causing them distress.
In some cases, like our daughter’s, it looks like using blockers to stop that puberty after blood tests confirm it’s already at the midway point, and that going any further would cause irreversible changes.
Eventually, after lots of time and many discussions with parents and professionals, it sometimes looks like hormone replacement therapy to get puberty going in the right direction.
That’s where we are now. Our daughter has been on estrogen for a while and is happy with what she’s seeing and feeling when she looks in the mirror. Today, because of all this support, life is fairly status quo. She’s a typical teenage girl doing typical teenage things. She has friends and likes to go downtown and loves video games and coding and photography. She talks our ears off about every new thing she learns, which is still a delight to hear after so many years of unhappiness and isolation.
She feels free.
This is what I – and many other caregivers in similar situations – get called abusive for doing. I usually hear it at least once a day, and often several times a day, usually from complete strangers. They truly believe what we’re doing is a terrible thing.
Well, I think what they’re doing is a terrible thing.
I think it’s terrible most of them have no lived experience in being trans or raising someone who is, and yet feel justified in sharing their opinions with those who live it every day. Many will create accounts specifically to target, shout at, insult and attempt to discredit trans people and their loved ones. (Ironically, they’re the ones yelling “what you’re doing is abuse!” the loudest.)
I think it’s terrible some of them are seemingly parents of trans kids themselves but refuse to believe their children and give them the support they need because they don’t subscribe to what they call “trans ideology.” They would rather try to convince their children they’re the gender they were assigned at birth and “help them get comfortable with that idea,” which history has shown us is a very painful and often fruitless experience for trans kids. It also greatly increases the risk of self-harm.
I think it’s terrible they spread misinformation about what it’s like to support a trans child, insisting we “mutilate their bodies with genital surgery” and other such nonsense. Surgery isn’t something all trans people get, it’s not something everyone in the community wants, and it’s certainly not performed on children for a variety of reasons. Anyone in the know understands this is not the case, but we’re constantly having to defend ourselves and our kids against false information.
I think it’s terrible some of these people claim to be feminists, and yet focus heavily on invalidating the identities of trans women and girls. “They’re not women!” they’ll yell to anyone who will listen, and argue that my daughter should not be allowed in women’s spaces because she’s “a danger to ‘real girls’.” They would rather my very feminine looking daughter use the men’s bathrooms and changerooms. Trans women are women and trans girls are girls. They’re also at very high risk of violence simply for being trans, which makes them a vulnerable part of the sisterhood. If we’re not protecting our most vulnerable – particularly since there’s no evidence the rest of us need to be protected from them whatsoever – then what kind of feminists are we? Spoiler alert: Awful ones. I would argue not very feminist at all.
I think it’s terrible people get upset that affirming parents are “sterilizing” our children with hormones. This is something I hear all the time. First, the decision to begin hormone treatment is a slow, careful process, involving many consultations with specialists, risks thoroughly explained, and consent forms signed. Within that process are several conversations about the potential for permanent sterility, possible preservation of sperm or ova, and other pathways to parenthood. My daughter is excited for motherhood down the road. She simply won’t be going about it in the traditional way. “There are many ways to become a parent,” she’s told me many times. “There are so many kids out there who need good homes. I’m going to be one of those homes.” Because we listened and supported, my daughter is alive today to become someone’s happy and healthy mom down the road. This is far more important to either of us than whether she has biological children.
Mostly, I think it’s terrible people are using the term “abuse” so loosely. By calling affirming parents like me abusive, they’re watering down the meaning, which does a disservice to actual victims of abuse. Abuse is a very real and dangerous problem in society, and the term should not be misused in the name of ignorance or outright bigotry.
The definition of abuse is: “to treat a person or animal with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly.”
There is nothing cruel about supporting your child.
There is nothing violent about getting them the help they need to live.
And the only thing we’re doing regularly and repeatedly is demonstrating unconditional love in the face of unnecessary adversity.
So, no. What I do every day isn’t abuse. What I do is take a woefully misunderstood parenting situation I found myself in and fight hard for one of the best and bravest girls I know.
What you do, however, if you’re constantly harassing parents like me with name-calling, slurs, insults and threats? That’s far closer to the definition of abuse.
But I’m not too bothered by it.
I’m kind of busy over here, watching my kid thrive.
"I just want to feel better."
I just want to feel better.
That’s what I told the doctor yesterday when I walked out of my house after dinner, drove to the clinic and sat in her office. My family doc is away right now, but his colleagues have my file, and in it, you can clearly see where I found my way into his office in 2015 with the same set of symptoms.
Back then, like now, I was dealing with a pile of issues beyond my control that were sending me into a daily anxiety spiral. I wasn’t sleeping well, eating well, or dealing well – at all.
But beneath that, buried just below the obviousness of anxiety, was depression. The two often work in pairs in my life. The problem is the anxiety is so in-your-face that it’s hard to see anything beyond it. So, like now, I treated the anxiety. I went to the gym, practiced mindfulness, saw a therapist, talked to friends, reduced my caffeine (no small feat as a writer, believe me) and anything else I could do to keep it at bay. Anxiety was the focus.
This time, it was also the focus. And again, this time, depression festered. I didn’t see it until it was suffocating me. Last night, as I heard about one more stressor to add to the pile of stressors going on, I suddenly realized I couldn’t do this without help anymore. My mind and body are exhausted. I’m no longer seeing the good stuff. I don’t want to be around people most of the time; I'd rather be alone with a good show on TV.
By the time I saw the doctor, I had done an online depression test to show her the results. I had made a list of my symptoms, and they were clear as day. This is what depression looks like for me. This is how it manifests. I still function, but everything is a giant hurdle. I still push through each day, but with an immense amount of effort. I’m not sitting in a corner crying all the time, but I'm not happy either. Everything is just bleak. Gray.
Insidious and cruel, manipulative and suffocating, hiding and in plain sight. That’s depression for me.
Today is my first day on anti-depressants. Again.
I took them at 7:30 am, right before leaving the house to do a speaking engagement at a local high school. The school was downtown, and I was coming in from the suburbs to the west of the city. When I left, the GPS on my phone said I would arrive at 8:28 – 22 minutes before the start of the assembly. But as I drove, as the traffic kept building up, my time of arrival kept inching up, closer and closer to the assembly’s start time.
I broke out in a cold sweat. I didn’t want to be late, to let people down. I started worrying about missing a chance to talk to hundreds of Grade 9 students about how to be a solid pal to the LGBTQ community. I take talking to youth seriously, because I know how engaged they are and what an impact they have. This group is just starting high school and have four years to change and shape school culture in a more inclusive way before making their way into other places and spaces to do the same. I couldn’t miss this.
In the car this morning, with my arrival time inching up, I realized none of my calm-down-Amanda techniques were working. No deep breathing, no thought analysis, no reminders that traffic was out of my control or that this wasn’t the end of the world. Nothing. And I consider myself a pro and slowing my roll.
“Well, of course nothing’s working,” I finally said to myself aloud in the car. “You’re depressed. You’re depleted. You can't counsel yourself out of this right now. You need to give yourself a break.”
The other day, I read something the incredible Elizabeth Gilbert wrote on Instagram. She was talking about her own negative thought processes and how that morning, she had tried to use thoughts to deal with her thoughts, creating a giant tangle. Then she remembered thinking her way out of it wasn't going to be the answer. She needed to let her heart do the work. In that moment, she simply chose to love herself, and to let her mind rest.
I loved what she had to say so much that I turned it into a quote to carry with me, obviously. And I remembered it when I was in the car. I let my mind be anxious, and I chose to love myself through it.
The assembly was great. I got there with a few minutes to spare. The room filled me with positive energy, and I engaged with students both during and after. Even on my hardest days, speaking to a room full of people is one of my happy places.
But yeah, I'm pretty tired now. My mind is a heavy thing to lug around.
The drugs will start to work soon. It took a little less than two weeks last time, and I hope for the same this time around. It’s a relief to know reinforcements are on the way. I’ve fought so hard, and I carry no shame. I saw I needed help and got it; what’s there to be ashamed of? I still believe I’m what strong looks like – now with a little serotonin army forming behind me.
Hey, everyone needs an entourage.
For now, I’m going to allow myself to just be, without too many expectations. I have to get better. So, I rest, I recuperate, I work as much as I can and no more than that, love my family and let them love me, and one day soon, I’m going to wake up with a spring in my step again.
If you’re struggling today and you’re wondering if you should make that doctor’s appointment: do it. Don’t even think about it anymore. Dial the number, send the email, or walk right in and say you need help. Do it for you, do it for the people you love. You deserve to be happy.
And then, together, we can both start shining again.
It's Not About the Tattoo: a post about anxiety
Last week, I had two big anxiety attacks, both over, of all things, a tattoo I got a year ago.
Yes, a year ago.
I was 40 when I got it. I spent months planning it out in my head. I saved up for it. I knew what I was getting into. I walked into the appointment without hesitation, and left with a smile. The tattoo says, "Lead with Love" in bold, beautiful writing on my forearm. I put it on my right arm, which is the one I extend to shake everyone's hand with. It's a reminder to me to always lead with love and kindness in everything I do, and it's served me well. Sometimes I need a reminder.
A few minutes after I got into my car, I panicked - hard. What have I done? Why did I do that? What if I just made a huge mistake? What if people judge me for it? What if no one ever hires me again?
I went home shaking, crying, worried. It took me a few hours to work through it. But by the end of it, I realized it wasn't about the tattoo at all: it was about everything else in my life. It was about a really hectic work schedule, and about being in talks for some big projects I felt were out of my league. It was about juggling three kids, a relationship with someone who was newly transitioning, a growing career, and the chronic hate I deal with as someone engaged in public activism.
It was about dealing with significant life changes and often shelving my own feelings about them so I could take care of others. Make sure they're okay. Get them what they need. Put everyone else first.
A typical mom maneuver. A typically dangerous one.
I have an anxiety disorder. I've had it my entire life, and it's taken many different forms over the years. When ignored, it finds a way out - a smaller, safer alternative to fret over, rather than dealing with what I'm actually anxious about. In that instance, it found my forearm. I was swallowed up in shame and fear for several terrible hours, a prison of screaming walls in my head.
And then I wasn't anymore. Because when I named it, when I had calmed down enough to say to my wife, "You know, I don't think this is about the tattoo," I was able to examine what was actually stressing me out: Everything else, not my beautiful new ink.
I've been wearing that ink proudly for over a year now. I love it. I show it off everywhere I go. I like how it looks in the mirror when I'm lifting weights at the gym. I buy shirts with three-quarter length sleeves so it peek-a-boos out the end of them. I'm a little obnoxious about it, actually.
I adore this tattoo. And when I'm calm and rational, I know it was a good decision for me, an expression of who I am and what I believe in.
But on Friday, as I was sitting in a waiting room, reading a status update from someone contemplating some ink in a very prominent place on their body and the "don't do it!" replies from others, my own body flooded with adrenaline, my pulse quickened, my breathing became shallow, and a flood of emotions from months before came back like they were brand new. I never saw it coming.
OMG, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have done that. I'm so stupid. What was I thinking? Who's ever going to take me seriously? What did I do?
Never mind the lack of evidence to the contrary. Never mind how much I love this tattoo, or how it's received nothing but compliments in the months I've had it. Never mind how I've had no shortage of work, nor have any of my friends with far more ink on their bodies than I have.
It didn't matter. Suddenly, my brain was in my guidance counselor's office in 1990, listening to her warning students about how visible ink will make you look "rough" and render you unemployable.
Reason had taken a backseat and anxiety was the driver.
I don't know how long the initial panic lasted. All I know is that I walked into the appointment with my anxiety peaking, but trying not to let it show (I'm pretty good at it, although I wouldn't say I'm proud of that). I was wearing a plaid shirt with the cuffs rolled up, and I remember rolling them down while we were talking, out of shame. I absorbed maybe 30% of what was said as I struggled to calm my mind and slow my heart.
When I got back out to the car, I was surprised, angry and feeling stupid about overreacting to something so benign. I said, out loud, "This is not about the damn tattoo. What's actually going on?"
I knew what was going on. The last few weeks have been incredibly stressful. Some of it is good stress. Our eldest, now 21, has moved out into his own place and is finding his way in the world. This made room for us to add to our family; we've taken in our daughter's best friend, who's 15 and has spent most of her life in the foster care system. We're now a happy family of six. These are good changes for everyone, but it's still been busy as our family undergoes more renovations.
Add to that the not-so-good stuff happening in and around my life. I have a good friend who has not one, but two kids fighting cancer right now - a stress load I can't even imagine. I have another good friend who's battling an as-of-yet mystery illness that has taken away her health and livelihood for nearly a year now. I have a child dealing with some mental health issues, and have been working hard for months to get services in place. I have a large, career-defining project due soon and am not as far along as I'd like to be because life has been keeping me busier than I expected. And I have the usual stresses that most of us have, like not enough money and not enough time and a not-clean-enough house and not enough butter tarts.
(Well, that last part might be a more unique concern.)
Through it all, I've been a little more together than I'm comfortable with. I would describe my reaction to a lot of what's been going on as "tempered" or even "numb." Friends will say, "That's a lot happening in your life at once. How are you feeling?" and I'll reply with "Surprisingly okay."
Except, I should replace "surprisingly" with "worryingly." I knew I should be reacting far more strongly than I have been - I just haven't let myself.
Like a lot of people, I can be exceptionally hard on myself when it comes to managing my own emotions. I'm the first to tell the people I care about they have every right to feel things, but I'll hold back when it comes to my own feelings. Why? Because "I can't fall apart right now." Because "other people have bigger problems." Because "I'm strong and I can deal with this without all those messy tears."
But my emotions know they need to be heard, so they've been looking for a safer exit, one that pushes past the ego and ridiculous expectations I have of myself.
They found one, those smart little darlings, not once, but twice. First on Friday, then again on the weekend. both over the same over-the-top reaction to the same, ridiculous thing. I challenged it immediately the second time, pushing it aside for what I needed to actually feel: worry for the people I love, worry over that ever-challenging work-life balance, worry over being the best mom to four kids (OMG four kids!) I can be.
And then, after I did some worrying and problem-solving about the actual problems in my life, I looked down at my arm and smiled proudly.
Anxiety: managed. At least for now.
Why am I sharing this? Because I hope it helps someone else who's dealing with their own "it's not about the tattoo" moment.
Because it isn't, just like it's probably not about the rip in your favourite hoodie that made you cry for half an hour at the end of a long day, or the raging in the kitchen you did when you burned that pot of soup when you really wanted that soup, or the dog hair on the stairs that hasn't been swept in a week (sorry, my issue again).
It's not about that. It's probably about something much bigger. That smaller stuff? It's the breaking point, not the source.
But rather than kick ourselves for not dealing with the bigger stuff head-on, we should be commending ourselves: We let our emotions find a way out so we could stare them down, figure them out, and start to move on. We did that. That's powerful.
So here's to your burned soup and my visible ink. And for us being both resilient and kind, even when we don't realize we are.
When we lead with love, we need to start with ourselves.
(Top photo credit: Danielle Donders, Mothership Photography.)
My Child Came Out Four Years Ago. Here's What We've Learned.
On this day four years ago, we found one of our kids was trans.
It was the eve of a national anti-bulling campaign, recognized in many schools by sporting pink shirts. I had completely forgotten about it, of course, until an email from the teacher came in and I made my patented panic-at-the-iPhone-screen face.
So out we I went, at the very last minute, with the two kids I knew as our middle and youngest boys, frantically running to whatever nearby stores were open, searching for anything pink they could wear to school in the morning.
Because otherwise they'd be wearing a non-pink shirt. And then would we be... pro-bullying? That was not the message I wanted to send.
That night, which involved an exhaustive search and two acquired shirts, I would discover two important things:
1. Finding pink in the boys' department in 2014 was next to impossible, and,
2. One of those two boys wasn't a boy.
Oops.
On February 25, 2014, our middle child came out to us as trans. It was the day that changed everything, and we recognize it in some way each year.
Normally, on Alexis' trans-a-versary, I write something sappy and put it up on my blog to thoroughly embarrass her. It's one of my great joys.
But this year feels a little different. This afternoon, I asked our now fifteen-year-old how she feels on this special day, and she said, "Good. But, you know, pretty normal."
"How so?" I asked, a little surprised. Because, like, for the first three years, she wanted to celebrate the hell out of this day. We'd go out for a meal and get her a card and talk about how much better things have been since she's started living as herself. She relished every moment.
"Well, it's been four years since I came out," she replied, "And it's exactly one year and four months since I've been on estrogen, too. I just feel like a typical girl now. My body feels right. My brain feels right. It's really nice and normal. Yeah, normal."
Normal.
I smiled and hugged her. Because what else is there to do when your kid feels right? Isn't that what we all want?
"Normal" isn't a word a lot of teens would use to describe themselves, but Alexis seems to own it. I couldn't be more thrilled about it. This is exactly what we had hoped for; that the 11-year-old we knew as a depressed and isolated boy, who felt anything but normal, would find a way out of that darkness.
A lot of people still don't understand trans children or the parents who choose to affirm them. They tell us our kids are too young, too naive, or too confused to be making decisions about their gender. We get accused of everything from blindly following a liberal agenda to outright child abuse. And no matter what, we're clearly leading them down a path of great regret.
If only you'd just let them be! If only you'd just let them live as the gender they are!
Well, I'm here to tell you we're doing exactly what you're asking:
We are letting them be. We're letting them be themselves. This is who they are.
We are letting them live as the gender they are. Not as the gender we assumed they were.
And in doing so, we're making their lives better.
Our kids are not actually making any big decisions about gender, unless you count telling their parents we've been sadly misinformed this entire time. What parents are doing is listening to them.
And in doing so - a little louder for those in the back this time - WE'RE MAKING THEIR LIVES BETTER.
Not following me? Rolling your eyes? I get you. I'm going to take a guess that on this day, four years ago, when I was moments away from receiving that coming out email from my child, that I knew about as much on trans issues as anyone rolling their eyes right now.
But don't worry, I had opinions on gender. They were big, strong opinions based on solid evidence, such as:
80's and 90's depictions of trans people on TV and in movies (super accurate!)
Some internet articles (source of all pure knowledge)
Discussions with friends and family who knew as much as I did on these issues
Basic biology (because doesn't the study of biology end in grade 11?)
And here's what those super strong opinions were not based on:
Learning from actual trans people. (Because who needs to learn from the people you're learning about? That's a dumb idea.)
Right around this time - 7:30 p.m., four years ago - I read that email, and everything I thought I knew about gender and trans people lit itself on fire and jumped off a cliff.
Super awkward.
I had two choices at that point: I could either scale the side of the cliff and collect those useless opinions of mine to make my ego feel better, or I could leave them there to die and listen to my child so that she could feel better. Today, as my beautiful, smiling daughter came into the kitchen and told me how perfectly normal she feels, I was reminded, once again, that those opinions can suck it.
It took a village to get her here: family, friends, neighbours, teachers, counselors, and medical professionals. Alexis did the hardest work, of course, but we all played a role in helping her achieve this new normal. We all had to actively choose to believe, affirm, support, and care for that brave little girl.
(You know, the one whose growing up into a mighty woman - however normal she might feel.)
Right around this time - a few minutes after that email was sent. - my spouse and I told Alexis our love for her is unconditional. We promised to learn with her and do everything we could to help her be the person she really is.
I'm glad we did. She tells us she's still here today because we chose to love her.
So, that's my message tonight. Rather than writing a big sappy letter to the girl who changed everything, I'm instead going to use this moment to say something to the people at the beginning of this journey.
Some of you reading this will have a loved one come out to you at some point. I ask that you love them - hard.
If you don't understand, that's okay. You can still love them while you're learning.
If you have opinions that go against what they're telling you, set those opinions on fire and toss them off a cliff. (I know a really high one.) Don't let old views cloud a new picture. You now have a person with lived experience to guide you, so keep an open mind and learn from them.
One day, I hope your loved one will walk into the kitchen full of strength and smiles like mine did today, and you'll see any work you've done to help get them there reflected back at you. It's a beautiful thing.
And I promise you, if you lead with love, this will all feel wonderfully normal soon. For them, for you, and hopefully for society at large. Because the more of us who love unconditionally, the more it makes it okay for others to do so.
Here's to, like, totally normal.
Happy four years out and proud, my amazing daughter.