Hiding My Light

As I continue to unpack my “self-esteem issue” (I should really give it a name – how about “IT” – picture a creepy clown hanging out under a bridge, whispering nasty things… yes, “IT”…), I realize that it doesn’t help that I have lived my entire life being shushed.

You see, I have a rather big personality. (“No shit, Sherlock!” says anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with me.) Throughout my life, my biggest asset has also been my biggest liability: my enthusiasm is HUGE when it’s lit with purpose. My mom found me loud. As a student, I was known to dominate classroom discussions.

In my time in The Service, I have heard more than once that my big personality is overwhelming, and have even been coached on how to harness my energy and keep it under “control”. And just recently, I’ve already bumped clumsily into a few people with my elephantine charge into this new/old Cause of mine.

There are times when my Big Personality work for me, though: playing the drums, singing (as I’m just starting to discover), teaching, and public speaking.

I am resolved in my battle with IT that, rather than worry about Bumping in to people, I shall find outlets where I can Be Myself unapologetically. One of those places will be here, on my blog. I will always be fully myself when I am storytelling. I just need to continue to be sensitive to keeping to my own story. 

Just in case I bump into you along the way, though: my apologies. I’ve always been a Big Girl. Sometimes I bump into things.

The Gift of Pain

I have spent more time crying over the last month than I can ever remember. 

As I write those words, I realize I’ve uncorked a bottle of sadness I’ve been topping up and carrying around with me for 35 years. My Big Bag of Pain. Pain from a litany of loss and abandonment. Pain from a sense of self worth that has barely ever registered, no matter what "accomplishments" I might have had. 

But the best thing about pain is this: it is UNENDURABLE. Eventually, you either find a way to cope, or you break in to a million pieces. It demands that you DO SOMETHING. And that, I believe, is its gift.

Meeting Megan’s daughter a month ago started turning things around for me. I chose to use that Moment to ritualize my letting go of the Pain of Losing Megan. And thanks to some advice from one of my many Work Family members who is caring for me, I realize that letting go is both spiritual and physical. So in the coming weeks as I sweat, drum, and spa the residual Pain out of my body, I will be better able to react and adjust to what’s happening now with Greg. If my Reconciliation Story is about integrating all the aspects of my Story, I can put a check mark beside “Pain”. My next, and most important task: to embrace the Wonder that is Lea. 

Now my real work begins - and therein lies the true Gift of my Big Bag of Pain.

Step one in the PR process: state the problem. 

Here’s the curious thing I discovered about myself: I look on Lea, the APR, Lea, the prof, Lea, the past President, Lea, the cool Grandma, as somehow outside of my real self. I’m quick to embrace my Sad Self, but accomplished Lea is somehow a show, a costume I put on. What the hell is that?? Yesterday, as I’m driving to my dad’s to have a good sweat in his sauna, I realized: this is a reputation management challenge - I need to do PR for/on myself! And I’m a freaking pro at that. 

I learned from my modest and shy mother to be invisible and put others first. She couldn’t take a compliment. Neither can I. But as I laboured over my application for membership in the CPRS College of Fellows, I couldn’t NOT notice my body of work - and be proud. If I am accepted, I shall be in Kelowna next year to celebrate it in person with my PR family. 

Dammit, I am (exceptionally) good at PR precisely because of who I am. I was made for this work. It makes me feel fully alive, gives me a sense of purpose, and puts me in a dynamic, creative community of people who want to change the world. I’m a pretty great drummer, too, with a lovely voice and lots to contribute to my musical family all on my own. I helped Marney buy her first home. I’m managing my Broken Heart in the best way I know how - to preserve what matters: my enduring friendship with one of the finest men I know.

Yeah, I have to learn to take a compliment. As my friend Christine said yesterday, “acknowledge the amazing person that you are right now”. 

Sophie Trudeau invited us to begin our Self Esteem reclamation journey by writing a love letter to ourselves. My friend and I looked at each other, with tears in our eyes - I whispered “I’m not even sure I could do that!” What a thing to realize about yourself!

So, the ultimate gift of releasing this Big Bag of Pain is showing me my true Reconciliation Story. In this next chapter, I hope to find myself falling in love all over again - with me.

Ripping off the Bandaid

For the last three weeks, my emotions have been very close to the surface. While intellectually I understood what was happening, I swung between the abject fear of losing Greg entirely (which would never happen), and indulging a secret hope that, if I "did this right", he'd come back to me.

In between, I've been making lemonade: seizing the opportunity my Story gives me to be a compelling Poster Child for how to address issues related to mental health in the workplace. It's given me a Story about my journey through Grief which actually comforts me - it somehow gives meaning to my pain. And boy, has there been pain.

Yesterday, Greg (finally) left me a carefully composed letter laying out his feelings in detail. He told me he was certain about separating, that the marriage was broken for him. I read the letter several times, looking between lines, and really reading his words. Slowly, something in me shifted. I actually felt lighter. Ok, the decision has been made. Now we just need to have a plan to get there.

I realize that I do fine with decisions. It's indecision that cripples me. My brain is so busy trying to follow every possible outcome, explore every point of view, that it's exhausting. But now, I can lean in to my organizational skills, leverage my practical side, and at the end of my little Grief Journey, I will accept my new role as Greg's friend.

I am so glad that Greg and I are both exceptionally kind people. We'll get through this intact. Changed, but intact. And now that the Bandaid has been ripped off, I can get on with reclaiming my place on the left side of The Continuum.

Separate

Separate (verb): Cause to move or be apart; become detached or disconnected; move apart

This is the hard part. Changing our relationship such that Greg can have what he wants: a separate existence. I can physically feel this act of separating from him, and it hurts – frankly, I’ve been feeling it ever since the May Announcement. But the pain will pass once I’ve adjusted. Meanwhile, I am taking care to monitor my emotions, which are very much in flux from minute to minute. But one thing my therapist helped me decide to do: no more afternoon rush hour traffic for me! I am absolutely RAGING behind the wheel right now, and I arrive home exhausted, frustrated, and angrier than hell. All of my anger is going there at the moment – so until I regain my balance, I shall avoid it.

Separate (adjective): Forming or viewed as a unit apart or by itself; not joined or touching physically.

This is what Greg wants. To be apart, not joined to me. So that is what I will give him:

1) No more making music together. Let’s face it, I’m a Writer who likes to make music with her friends (most especially with her husband); Greg and most of our Music Family are really more Musicians who happen to have Day Jobs. Living separate has to mean that Greg gets the Music Family. 

2) Living apart: I’m so glad we have the studio. Greg has moved in there, and I wish for him an amazing winter of hibernating and recording to his heart’s content.

The first night apart came sooner than I thought – suddenly grabbing a cot and heading out there last night, I wasn’t even sure he had sheets and blankets! It was a weepy night for me, and a very rough morning as a result – but I’m going to start chanting “embrace the bed, embrace the bed” and enjoy having a comfy king-sized bed to myself (my poor Ralphie can’t even sleep there any more….).

Meanwhile, I’ve put together a plan to take extra special care of myself. I am putting together a routine that includes mediation, yoga, and an adjusted work schedule that allows me to focus on staying as calm as I can. I am once again immensely grateful to have the kind of work I can do remotely when need be, and a supportive workplace that will accommodate me. Part of my crusade is to encourage all employers to do the same.

Thank you all for all your kind words. My mother – rest her soul – would be turning over in her grave right now (if she had one). She would never have approved of me being so public with my private life. I think I really internalized that, to the degree that I carried my own stigma around acknowledging the importance of actively working on my own mental health. 

Perhaps this is one family tradition I shall let go.

Changing the Conversation about Mental Health: My Life on The Continuum

I became a passionate advocate for mental health in 2008, when my best friend killed herself. I channeled all of my hurt and grief into a personal crusade to do whatever I could to attack the stigma that had kept her silent. I became a Champion for the Mentally Ill.

Because Megan lost her battle with depression, I saw her as one of them: the Mentally Ill. Even though I was reeling, desperately sad and confused, drowning in my own shock and anger, I didn’t identify what was happening to me as my own mental health challenge – I was fine, I was coping. Because this is how I – and the rest of the world – understood Mental Illness: as a binary thing. You either have it, or you don’t. I didn’t have it. She did, and it cost her her life. So I buried my sorrow and channeled it into a personal crusade to save the Mentally Ill.

The Old Model:

source: Mental Health Commission of Canada, "The Working Mind"

As the years passed, I kept working, living a busy life with lots of commitments. I organized a national conference, with a keynote panel discussion on mental health. I told Megan’s story to anyone who would listen. My message: don’t be afraid to ask for help. Suicide is devastating to all those left behind. Above all, we have an obligation to have compassion for the Mentally Ill. I reached out to colleagues who were struggling, offering an ear and supporting them as best I could as they tried to navigate a workplace culture that also embraced this simplistic binary notion of mental illness.

But as campaigns like Bell Let’s Talk and Do It For Daron began to shift the momentum in the public conversation, we started talking about Mental Health rather than focusing on Mental Illness. Champions like Clara Hughes showed us, by telling their personal stories, that we all share experiences that challenge our mental health. We began to collectively accept the fact that we had to let go of the stigma around mental illness and begin to look at it differently. The efforts of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, supported by an infusion of  corporate dollars and a growing public will to do this important work, began to coalesce,  and I believe we are already saving lives as a result.

This year, my passion for mental health advocacy happily collided with the awakening of my employer, the Government of Canada to The Cause I embraced all those years ago. The FederalPublic Service Mental Health Strategy is built around meeting three basic goals: 1) changing the culture, 2) building a common understanding (through training), and 3) using an evidence-based approach (i.e. using real measures to both identify the issues, and articulate clear goals against which progress can be measured). That reframes all kinds of conversations, ranging from organizational culture change, to internal communications and engagement, performance management, and human resources.

The Mental Health Continuum: a Transformational Concept

I have trained over three decades to respond to imperatives like this. I have learned that, to begin to change culture, you start by changing the conversation. Drawing from my knowledge and experience as a change agent, and as a well-seasoned communications and PR specialist, I believe that the key lies in finding a transformational concept around which to begin to reframe the conversation.

And The Mental Health Continuum is where we can start to do that.

In the old was of thinking, mental health was seen as a binary thing – we were either “well” or “ill”. Even leaving aside for a moment the fact that we had absolutely no skills in how to interact with the Mentally Ill, the fundamental flaw in the model is that is sets up a Them and Us relationship between those in crisis and those who need to respond to it. Any conversation – whether it is about performance, or concern for the employee’s wellbeing – starts from the premise that if you’re not “healthy”, you’re “ill”.

Enter the new model:

source: Mental Health Commission of Canada, "The Working Mind"

In the new Mental Health Continuum, I found my “a-ha” moment as a change agent – and in my own mental health. By recognizing that we all live in flux, somewhere along a Continuum across which we move between the two extremes of  “healthy” and “ill”, we change the conversation from one based on a dynamic of Them (the “ill”) and Us (the “healthy”), to one based on WE.

This is the place where I live. All of my PR skills, and my lived experience, are coming to roost here in this, my new purpose. I will do everything in my power to help this Movement succeed. As it applies to my work in The Service, we are on a mission to make our workplace a kinder, gentler, and yes, more productive place, where people share a sense of community and a connection to our common purpose of Public Service.

We all live on the Continuum.

Most of us – we hope – live on the healthy side. But life is tough. Sometimes it’s brutal. We have experiences that change who we are. We all experience great sadness, crises of confidence, horrific tragedy. The key to embracing this new construct and realizing its power, is to recognize that we all have a role to play in our collective Mental Health story. At work, and in our personal relationships, we have an obligation to do what we can to create a safer place in which people can go through their “reacting” and “injured”, and come back to “healthy” -- just as we have a responsibility to provide first aid when someone is physically hurt, and support each other in times of crisis. And we have an invitation to embrace our own Mental Health story.

It translates beautifully in a corporate system like The Public Service, because you can institutionalize all of the required supports to make it work: you can define and measure success, clearly articulate goals, define roles, and establish ground rules such that you are set up to succeed. It’s a controllable environment, with levers readily available to be used positively. For my work, call it Internal Communications, Employee Engagement, whatever you like, at its core, it’s about changing a conversation.

My First Aid Training has now given me a language and a lexicon for breaking that down in practical terms, and fully stepping in to my role as a storyteller. I understand now how I can honour my responsibility as a member of my work community and as a mental health advocate. The key to the Continuum is in being self-aware, and vigilant in our care of others. It is the intensity and the duration of the time any of us spends in the “ill” box that makes the difference. Without the tools to cope, without a strategy – without a positive construct for a conversation about mental health – people have historically been getting stuck in “injured”. And over time, that becomes “ill”.

But with the Continuum, we can acknowledge that WE all have those moments. If we all live this story together, we can all find our way to play a part in creating an environment that is healthy, safe, and supportive, and ultimately - to apply it to the business context - highly productive.

But wait, there’s more: Embracing The Continuum -- A Personal Story

My first husband was an undiagnosed manic depressive, and I was working three jobs to keep us afloat. Man, was that hard. Meanwhile, a dear friend was dying of cervical cancer, living with her step-dad north of Toronto. I moved there to be with her, to help care for her, and taught my classes online, commuting back to Ottawa for the occasional “conjugal” visit. There was more than one occasion when I entertained the fantasy that a simple flick of the wrist would end my misery as I flew down the 401. But no, I wasn’t “ill” – I kept functioning. My friend died, and soon afterwards, my first husband and I divorced, and I felt “healthy” again.

I subsequently met and married The Man of My Dreams. A fully-functioning, healthy man with passion, an artist with a very special voice I believe the world needs to hear. Together, we have built an amazing life. I fell in love with his daughter, and he and I got matching tattoos to celebrate the arrival of our first grandchild four years ago. We survived a full-house renovation, our relationship stronger because of it. We have a deep connection and a healthy, respectful relationship; we show the best of ourselves to each other, and above else are always honest about how we are feeling.

This spring, my husband of 13 years told me he wasn’t happy in the marriage, and last week, he declared that he wanted to separate. My world tilted, and I fell into a big pool of Sadness. I was sad to contemplate life without him. Very sad. Mind-numbingly sad. Physically hurting sad. I talked to my manager. I contacted EAP. I saw a therapist. We talked about how I was coping – quite well, intellectually, I knew what I needed to do to support my partner. But I cried, I raged at the traffic, I wasn’t sleeping well, and I began to worry that, fight as I might, I was becoming “ill”.

Even as recently as a few months ago, I still saw Megan as the emblem of “ill”, and myself as “healthy” – and lived in fear of becoming like her. Meanwhile, deep down, I knew I wasn’t “healthy” all the time. And that scared me. But I didn’t think about killing myself. I just procrastinated a bit, maybe. I honoured my commitments, always – my training is too deeply ingrained, and I was always able to get the gumption up to pull an all-nighter if need be. I was ALWAYS there in the crunch – I even became a crisis communications specialist while my first marriage was breaking down. I wrote a blog about being a “functioning depressive”. I was coping, I thought.

But then, I met The Continuum, and since then, everything has begun to change. In the moment that I discovered that I am not “ill” – that I am simply living out a moment on the sad side of the Continuum - I began to cope better. I realized that I had been carrying my own stigma about those “ill” moments when they happened. Instead of fearing the blackness, I made peace with those moments, and took charge of my mental health with the confidence that I had it within myself to come through this in one piece, with my humanity and relationships intact. And with the Mental Health Framework, I have the resources I need to do whatever it takes to do that.

I’m a PR professional and change agent on a mission. But first and foremost, I am a human being. I now have to acknowledge that my relationship with my husband is going to become something else. Being sad, and knowing how important it is for me to allow myself to be emotional in those moments, I have been crying – a lot. But instead of seeing myself as broken – “ill” – I now know that I am “reacting” to a jarring change. I may even be dipping into “injured” now and then – and that’s ok. Sometimes I get a cough. Sometimes my knee hurts and I can’t walk very well. It’s the same thing. It’s another moment on a continuum of Wellness.

So, as I embrace my Life On The Continuum, I will use this journey in my role as a Mental Health Champion. I am committed to sharing my own personal story, in the hopes that you will see how we all are part of this evolving conversation about mental health.

So today, here is what’s going on with me. I am beyond excited about the confluence of my own personal search for meaning in Megan’s suicide, and this global movement to change the conversation about mental health. But I am also very, very sad to be separating from my husband. We have a wonderful relationship, and he is going through his own experience on The Continuum. His coping strategy is to ask for space, and we are working out how to do that through good conversation and much love. I believe that part of the reason I am able to go through this with him with compassion and respect is because I now recognize where any of my occasional hurtful, resentful thoughts originate: in a transient moment of “ill”ness. These thoughts are not the true me – they are just an expression of how I am feeling at a moment in time. So I don’t say mean things. I don’t lash out in anger. I cry, and I talk – and I walk through it. We walk through it.

So, as it turns out, I am a poster child for the Power of the Continuum. I no longer have to see myself as “ill” to acknowledge that I need to ask for help. I know that right now, as I am “reacting”, I need to take special care of my mental health, just as I would a torn knee ligament or a breast cancer scare. I am working with my manager to come up with a plan that gives me the space I need to do what I need to do first: take care of myself. The Framework empowers me to ask for that help. And as someone I work with loves to keep reminding me: just like we’re taught when flying in an airplane, we must first take care of ourselves before we can be of any use to others.

I will not be defined by the sadness I am feeling. Instead, I will use this experience to share my story with you about my Life on the Continuum. I will tell you how I am being accommodated, and how by embracing the Power of the Continuum, I will, I hope, be a better partner to the man I love. And, I hope, I will also be a voice for mental health advocacy, and a force for good in my workplace.

I am a Functioning Depressive

Eight years ago today, my best friend lost her battle with mental illness. She wrote a note to her family, opened up a boxcutter, and slit her throat. I got a call several days later from her mother - it took that much time for her body to be discovered. Her voicemail light was blinking with the message I’d left her on what turns out to have been the day she died. Just another “Love Bomb”, as we called it - messages we’d leave for each other, just to say I love you and I’m thinking of you. 

For decades, both of us were notorious for screening our calls when we were in our dark places. Our answering machines were our refuge from the world. But long ago, she and I agreed that we would never just hang up on each other - the Love Bomb was our promise to stay in touch, and to wait patiently for the other to come out of whatever funk was visiting that day/week/month. 

I found out in the week that followed her death that this had been her fourth or fifth attempt at suicide. While I knew about the antidepressants, had heard all the gory details about the therapy sessions, and shared all of my darkest thoughts with her, my best friend never told me about those attempts. She held something back, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever truly know why. All I know for sure is that she now has some peace.

Me, not so much. 

My friend’s suicide launched me on a crusade to change the conversation about mental health. I used my professional skills to “give a purpose” to my grief. With my gaze turned outwards, I became passionate about saving lives - attacking the stigma that likely prevented my best friend from sharing with me that one significant detail about her struggle. What I didn’t do until this year is stop, take a breath, and look in the mirror. Until now.

Yes, I feel sadness when I think of all the people I’ve lost. I have always felt everything deeply. Tremendous joy, deep darkness, paralyzing fear, my emotions have always been right there, close to the surface. It's been especially true in the last couple years, as I have entered The Change. But I have over 35 years of practice “putting on a brave face”, thanks to a career in public relations, years of teaching, and a proclivity for rushing in to "take care" of the people I love. I’m not even sure I know how to put my own needs before others, and I certainly don’t know how to take a compliment. I've just come to realize that this outward-looking posture has left me with a huge hole in my Self.

So the true work begins now. As always, I will leverage my intellect to help shepherd me through an emotional journey. But I’m looking for a different outcome this time. It’s personal reconciliation. I want to make peace with this roller-coaster ride I’m on, and embrace the loving, caring, talented woman inside me. I want to come clean about those days when I still wish I had an answering machine to screen me from the world. And I want all of My Self to feel safe to come out to play. 

End of an era.

On December 30, 1999, I took delivery of my very first brand new car. I broke all the rules of car ownership, and I did it for love. From that moment on, I was the lady with the PT Cruiser with the vanity plate, and that car never failed to delight or deliver on its promise – to quite simply be the best car I’ve ever had.

I bought it in the first year of the PT’s existence – breaking rule number one. Never buy the first year – let them work the kinks out first, then get in on it a few years later. I also bought it brand new – breaking rule number two. Technically, I lost thousands of dollars the moment I started it up and drove it off the lot.

But I was working as a well-paid, full-time consultant at the time. I leased the car rather than buying it – a better tax write-off. Indeed, even the vanity plate fit into the overall business plan: as a regular Gold Circle attendee of Bluesfest, I loved driving onto the festival grounds to park (back when we could do that, in the pre-museum Good Old Days of Bluesfest), and watch the heads turn and people smile.

Technically, I broke a third rule when I got to the end of that lease: I bought the car out, financing its balance through another car loan. All tolled, I likely bought the damned thing twice over with the amount of money I paid. But damn, I LOVED THAT CAR!

Cars are an expense, not an investment. No matter how you get there, you’re always going to be facing a monthly bill when you own a car. Unlike my parents’ generation, I’ve never had enough cash on hand to buy a car outright, so it always had to be financed somehow. But expense or not, it was worth every penny – the car ran for 16 years. Ok, it had a few quirky electrical issues – power was always its weak link. Ultimately, I stopped driving it because I didn’t want to be surprised with a key that wouldn’t turn. But Greg kept it going for a few more years, and man, did that car work for us. Lumber, equipment, furniture, patio stones, dirt, sleeping car, it did it all, and still parked in a “small car” parking spot. It was a joy to get in and out, beautifully appointed inside, and sexy as hell.

And today, a man with a tow truck took it away for scrap for the Kidney Foundation of Canada. 

Will this be my last romance with a car? Likely not. But you never forget your First.

Looking to catch some "Sunny Ways"

With the arrival of Justin Trudeau's new government, a new set of priorities is on the agenda. Priorities that call for a specialized set of skills in relationship management. My skills.

Whether it’s helping to initiate a new Nation-to-Nation conversation about what it means to be Canadian, putting the pieces in place for the legalization of marijuana, or launching the long-overdue enquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, public relations skills are going to be very much in demand.

That’s where I come in. With close to 35 years in public relations and communications management, I am looking for a new challenge that makes the most of my skill set. I put ballet dancers on Bank Street. I helped the country's biggest landlord change their business model when Public Works outsourced property management services for the first time. I helped stand up a paradigm-shifting service delivery organization at Service Canada, changing how citizens interact with governments. 

And now I’m ready for the Next Big Challenge.

I'm driven by a need to be a Force for Good in the world. That's why I got into PR. But never before have I witnessed a time more in need of building healthy relationships with our fellow human beings. And never before have we had access to this amazing array of knowledge and tools that can make that possible.

I’m a skilled communicator, facilitator, and leader. I have the ability to bring disparate points of view together to find common ground. I am patient, compassionate, and enthusiastic. And I’m beside-myself excited about the work ahead for the Canadian Public Service.

I am willing – in fact, eager – to relocate. Preferably west – to Alberta, where my daughter and grandson live.

Let’s talk.