2013 in one word “BROKEN”

After such a whirlwind 2012 with meeting Oprah Winfrey, hosting a successful Jamie Oliver Food Day Revolution, Starting Ignite Health No one could have prepared me for the reality that 2o13 would knock me down and keep kicking at me.

January 2nd my daughter who has already faced more than any child should have to with health issues fell down 12 stairs. She broke her 4th toe on her left foot. Sounded simple enough but here we are April 8 and that toe has not healed and we are going back to the Orthapedic surgeon on Friday. At our last appointment in March the surgeon looked at Megan’s xray in shock. Turned to us and said I have never had to operate on a toe before. Megan’s body doesn’t heal. I know this intutively but can’t seem to get any doctor to look beyond their area of expertise to the bigger issue below the surface.

Since January 2nd I have been taking care of Megan’s needs for showering, for all meals delivered upstairs before I leave for work. Also Toby my 2 year old labradoodle has had to count on me for all care. In that regard I took him to the Dog park on Good Friday. He had a blast there was water in the pond and he was soaking wet. I decided after an hour that was enough and i needed to get him out of there before he got any wetter! Toby is a very rambunctious! He is enthusiastic and still ALL PUPPY! I got him on his leash with the promise of a treat. He was fighting me as i had to drag him out of the dog park. I thought we were through the worst of that and all of a sudden out of my periphreal vision I notice an arm being raised. Toby noticed it too. I felt him tense and all of a sudden he pulled…..I went with him and landed very hard on my chest on Left side.

I now have a broken rib and a bruised kidney to add to the complications of taking care of Megan. I am learning how to do laundry, cook, sleep on my back , how to drive to my job, how not to stretch, laugh, cough, sneeze!

I ponder if God is laughing again, or if he is sending me a message that I still don’t have priorities right? I have a good sense of humour and it helps a lot.

I will be starting therapy on April 12 officially. I need help to understand why I keep beating myself up, picking at my skin, and I send up my white Flag!

I need help to understand what I am doing right and what I need to change, what survival techniques from my childhood are helping me and which ones need to be removed.

We are broken and we are trying to get up!

Hiding behind a wall – Shutting down emotionally

I have been experiencing an awakening of sorts over the last month. I have become aware that I shut myself down emotionally about 2 years ago for a number of reasons.

I have been very successful at doing presentations and showing my passion for causes I believe in, I have made many friends at the acquaintance level and I would say I am well liked in London, Ontario.

But I started realizing a few months ago that I do not cry in movies anymore and that was something both my kids would tell you they looked at me during movies for.

I have cried in the last month a fair amount, a lot of that is about my sister and my worry for her, some of that was stress related and has been dealt with. But most of it seems to be a crack in the brick wall that I put around myself a couple years ago.

I can place a couple reasons for that initial shutdown, first i lost a best friend and it hurt me deeply, making me not want to open myself up to anyone that much again.  Second, my child was sick and doctors and everyone was giving up on her, calling her a liar and I was constantly battling for her to never back down from any of the naysayers I knew my child was sick and no one would convince me otherwise.  3rd my choice in men had brought me nothing but heartbreak.

I know that shutting down emotionally happened gradually.  I remember complaining that I felt so alone , that no one was really there for me. But no one heard me. My child who was sick was suffering so much worse than I was so i swallowed those emotions down and eventually grew cold.

I know I shut down as a little girl, it was the only way to survive the drama and violence in the home around me.  If I didn’t let it bother me then I could withstand anything.

But I am not a child anymore and I am incredibly sad knowing that I left myself that way for 2 years as an adult. It did let me focus on my job and making a difference in the community. But if you ask me what I like or what my favorite things are right now , i truly have no idea.  I am a giver by nature I have always been good at reading other peoples needs and filling them.  This was again a critical skill in dealing with mentally ill parent and alcoholic parent you had to read the signals to know if you were safe to speak or if you needed to just disappear and hope they didn’t see you.

So I have to break the wall down, it will take a bit of time and it will not be easy. I will not run Ignite Health Ontario in February now that I have figured this out. It is time for me to find my own balance and open my spirit up to the world again. I need to focus on learning what makes me happy and how to balance myself now that my daughter is healthier and stronger.

I have been my own best friend and my own worst enemy in so many ways. I am my best friend in protecting who i love, and making a difference in community because I know those things make me very very happy.  Now its time to let tears flow, to appreciate myself and love myself. I am my worst enemy in disregarding my feelings and disregarding my own wants. I am my worst enemy in taking care of everyone but me.

I am sorry to those I have been cold too, I was not fully concious of this in myself and you have only seen a small sliver of who i really am. I hope you will stick around for the discovery.

Hugs

Michelle

Sometimes the world throws you a fast ball

I was happily feeling the glow and success of Ignite Health on October 24th. The event went so perfectly and I was so proud of my daughter. I was on a natural high feeling of success.

Less than 48 hours after the event I got a call that my only sister was dealing with a bad case of depression, she essentially hit the bottom and I went to see her the next day. It was very hard to see my little sister completely broken. She is fighting back and getting good help. I know she will be so much better moving forward and I am very proud of her.

My work environment also seemed to become toxic around the same time, bullying and power struggles seemed to be impacting me and the team I work with. It became difficult to face being at the office for a few weeks.

My daughter had a terrible weekend and stopped seeing a reason to keep fighting, she has taken on so much and she is a perfectionist who has to learn her limits and not expect so much of herself. Its ok to feel weak and lost sometimes.

All of these things seem to happen directly after a perfect high in my life of efforts I make to make a difference in my community. These challenges reset me and bring me crashing back down to earth to focus on what is important in my family. I have found myself in tears more in the last 3 weeks than I had for a year. Life is never perfect, we all deal with challenges all the time and things that are not in our control. The goal is to keep moving forward and not staying in the negative mindset. This is not easy when things keep going wrong but I know that the reason I have been able to deal with so much tragedy and pain is by looking for a bright side.. moving toward a bright side. trusting in a bright side.

I always recognize when I hit an emotional bottom for me, I then focus all my energy on bringing positive into my life to offset the negative. I have started pulling together ideas for the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution weekend and I am so excited about the ideas I have!

1. thanks to my friend Christian D’Andrea we will have a day that is focussed on Veggies. A veggie fest where we will cook some basic recipes with lesser known veggies. Blind taste tests for veggies that you have never tried!! 

2. A community Garden to be created. A friend of mine Helder is working on finding a plot where we can plant seeds and then as attendees we will take turns managing the garden and we can all share in the results!

3. Back to Basics cooking lessons – lets think back to what the pioneers did for cooking we have lost basic cooking skills and haven’t provided to our children lets do this with parents and kids!

4. Growing Chefs childrens events- will certainly be back in touch with my friend Andrew Fleet to host and create awesome kids events!

I Am also looking forward to creating Ignite Health Ontario II in February 2013. Looking for a facility and to pick a date before the end of this month.

These things remind me of the good I can do and the impact I can have on a greater cause.

I am staying in touch regularily with my sister and Megan is back to looking forward. I am also looking forward to my son getting back to ontario for a visit from Halifax in December!

Christmas is coming and I am ready to restart my life again!

Don’t stay stuck! Find a reason to move forward, pick yourself up and just do it!

 

Love

 

Michelle

What if the bully is your mother?

I am reflecting on my 15th year of life after watching #RIPAmandaTodd’s video. I was not bullied in the traditional ways at school I worked very hard to keep a smile on my face and pretend that life was perfect. I kept my distance just enough and avoided controversy by trying to be LIKED by everyone.  This was crucial to my survival at school because I was being bullied by my mother at home.

When I think back on my 15th year today I am actually trembling. This didn’t strike me as one of the worst years of my life but clearly my heart and soul remember it vividly to create anxiety in me at 44 years of age. I look around and my mother is not in my life, she can no longer manipulate my friends by pretending to be the best mother and telling them what a liar , slut and bitch I was.

A bit about that year as I think back this morning. My mother was miserable and had borderline personality disorder or some other nasty mental illness that made her jealous of her 15 year old daughter and planning to destroy her. My mother would take my purse or backpack and dump it out looking for drugs or condoms when  I got home from school. I was not sexually active yet, I was not doing drugs…but because I smoked cigarettes that meant I was evil and doing other things too. I drank alcohol with my friends at school I skipped school to have happy moments in my life. I was attracted to the bad boys and the rocker girls because I was being told I was one of them at home.

Other nights my stepdad would be away on business and my mother would force me to sleep beside her in bed telling me that she would likely die overnight and she wanted me to check to make sure she kept breathing. So I would never sleep on those nights, if i drifted off i would wake with a start and make sure she was breathing.

My mother would call my friends and be their support system, manipulating them, making them question why I was so miserable. If I shared anything about the things happening in my house my friends would roll their eyes because my mother was acting so perfect to them.

One night i was asleep in my bed around 2am. My mother woke me up and demanded i get out of bed because someone was on the phone for me. I got up blurry eyed and picked up the phone… I said hello wondering who would be calling for me at 2am…On the other end of the phone all i heard was you are such a BITCH. Then they hung up.  I burst into tears and my mother sent me back to bed.  I cried the rest of the night and got up for school in the morning. I remember so clearly looking at all my friends and wondering which one of them was on the other end of the phone. I had recognized the voice but didn’t get enough of it to be sure who it was. All my friends denied it, Clearly I was insane.  I stopped trusting my friends that day. I felt incredibly alone and my mother had worked very hard to make sure I was.

I was then in a place where I knew that my friends didn’t truly care about me and my mother hated me. I had no one, nothing. This was one of the very first times i considered suicide. I had a mother who was plotting to destroy me. How does that happen? Was I crazy, maybe I was the reason she was so miserable? Maybe I wasn’t worth talking to or being around? 

My 15th year peaked with another night where my mother was threatening to kill herself. This time she locked herself in her bathroom with a suitcase of drugs. I was screaming and pounding on the door begging her not to kill herself and asking her to open the door. She yelled back FINE you want to watch me kill myself you bitch….go ahead come in. My mother was sitting on the floor , she had poured all her pills on the floor and looked up at me and said which one do you want me to take next?  I begged her to stop. she told me that this was my fault anyway, I was the reason her life was ruined, I was the reason she was killing herself. I was frantic I yelled for my stepdad and he called 911.

4 police cars pulled up to my house that night. It actually took 4 police officers to pull my mother out of the bathroom. She fought them tooth and nail. She was taken to the hospital and I was taken to a temporary foster home. I was a mess , and I was put into a co-ed home. This was a mistake for a completely destroyed 15 year old. Boys gave me attention and I lost my virginity that summer because I had no self esteem. I didn’t even like the boy that took my virginity I just thought i might as well do this since my mother said i was a slut anyway.

I was put on birth control that summer which was the right thing to do by the foster family. I actually loved the freedom I had at this home. I started to calm down and they had a big pond that I could sit by and be soothed by the water.  I was having supervised visits with my mother as she was being treated at the hospital and had been there 6 weeks. After she got home I received a call from my mother…and all she said on the other end of the phone was Why did you steal my frozen spinach pastry puffs? I was mystified, I told her I did not steal them and I hung up. Then I started laughing and I knew that my mother was actually crazy. This was the clear line for me.  Why would anyone steal a frozen pastry puff? I was not even living at home to steal it.

In actuality , she was obsessed with me, she needed to control me, she needed to make sure I didn’t love anyone more than her. I was sent home to return to school in August of that year, I decided that when I went home I would no longer respond to her attacks. I would treat her like she was normal and refuse to feed the craziness in her.  At 15 I completely understood mental illness.

She went back to school that september and started volunteering for the college newspaper. She moved into a happy period of her life and thats why my 16th year was actually pretty good.

Amy Todd was bullied to the end of her rope. She didn’t know anyone was there for her, she didn;t have tools to find inner strength and peace to guide her back from the brink. I was lucky that there has always been something in me that was a fighter, I refused to be totally destroyed by anyone. I refused to make my mother happy by killing myself!

At 17 she actually chased me with a knife and wanted to kill me, but thats another story and its in another blog titled the night my mother tried to kill me.

No child should ever feel this alone in the world, Someone should have stood up and helped Amanda stand up to her bully. Whoever that boy or man who constantly manipulated her and stalked her from town to town should be charged with murder. Where was her family? Were they supportive, did Amanda listen to them? She was 15 only 15…..

My message to teens is YOU have NO idea what is going on at home for a child you are bullying. For all you know they have a mother like mine. Are you really willing to be the person that pushes someone to the edge of considering suicide. Be kind, be supportive, don’t rush to judgement. Everyone has a story and everyone deserves to be heard. Everyone deserves to have someone in their life they can turn too.

I survived my mother’s bullying and I wish strength to any child who is dealing with a bully in their home or in their life outside of home. You are not alone. Many of us have been there and know your pain.

Hugs

 

Michelle

 

 

Teenage minds- Not ALL the same!

My name’s Megan I am 16 years old and I live in London, Ontario. Seeing into the minds of people my age can be difficult for anyone who isn’t my age. My generation faces new problems, new social norms, and new expectations. The way teenagers thought 30 years ago isn’t how we think today and the way we think now won’t be how teenagers 30 years from now will think. And within that every teenager will have different priorities and different hopes and dreams so clearly you can never have a full understanding of every teenagers mind. I have been sick for the last 5 years of my life and have been removed greatly from people my age so I can’t tell you much about the way they think but I can tell you about the way I think.

The thing about being sick for so long is I had a lot of time to think.  Most people envy being able to stay home all day and relax but being that isolated can become boring and tedious; you can only check facebook so many times. For the first few years of my illness I found small things to entertain me, video games, books, television shows, but as I grew older I spent more of that time thinking. I thought about my future and if I would get the chance to have one, I thought about my family and if I would always be a burden on them and I thought about the world and would I ever be able to do anything for it. I started spending more of my time reading about what was going on in the world and I started seeing things that I couldn’t believe were happening. For example a couple months ago in Iran 70 university programs were closed off to women because they were surpassing the men within them. And in many places around the world, such as Uganda, it is legal to kill a person for being a homosexual. Reading all this I wanted to fix it but never thought I would have the opportunity to.  At that point in my life I didn’t let myself dream or hope for anything but sickness, after five years of nearly constant illness how could I? So I ignored these problems and went back to my tv or video games.

Something changed for me a few months ago, I got tired of letting my illness stop me, I got tired of not trying to do anything because no one thought I could succeed, and I got tired of accepting that I would live the rest of my life being ill. I don’t know what changed for me but I did. I started researching universities and looking at careers in human rights and I started working towards a future for myself. I started volunteering in the community and doing things to see if I could handle going back to school. And now after five years I’m fighting my illness so I can do something with my life. I have decided I want to become a human rights lawyer and be the person that helps solve the types of issues mentioned above. So this year I’m working my butt of to do well in school and to get more involved so I can get into a good university and eventually a good law school. It is hard, I get tired and I get sick but I keep working because I have to, because I’m tired of letting illness rule my life.

So that is how I think, it may not be how every teenager sees the world but those are the challenges I am currently facing and I hope this gives some insight on a teenagers brain even if it is just mine. One thing I want to add is a quote from novelist John Green.

“When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”

― John Green, Looking for Alaska

My Experience with Hospital for Sick Children – Toronto, Ontario

My daughter has been sick since 2008. She was 12 years old when her life changed for the worse. Initially it was a bad case of Pneumonia that took 3 rounds of strong anti biotics to clear up. Then she got Mono and that took another 8 months of her life. We were dealing with pediatricians, blood tests, ultrasounds, and family doctors. In 2009 she started bleeding for her menstrual period and it was excessively heavy.  She went to her first gynacologist and she was put on birth control pills to control that bleeding. Through this 2 year time period all I ever wanted was to get Megan to the Hospital for Sick Kids where they would actually care about her and find the root cause of her health issues.  It was my dream, it would be the answer for us.

In 2010 Megan lost her ability to walk. She had extreme vertigo. She looked like she was drunk when she walked, I took her to the emergency department at Markham Stoufville hospital and she was completely ignored. We waited 4 hours and she still was not brought in to be diagnosed.

We took her to Sunnybrook hospital the next day and they actually treated her wonderfully. But because she was a child they transfered us to the Hospital for Sick kids and I thought YES we finally have a chance to have Megan looked at by this world class hospital!  We got Megan into a Wheelchair as she was not safe walking when she was catching herself on walls and could possibly injure herself.

All of my hopes and dreams were coming true for Megan. The doctors at Hospital for Sick Kids would surely look at Megan and work hard to help her get healthy. I don’t know how to describe in words what this meant to me, but it was very positive. I was sure we would finally get answers.

Our first doctor in the Hospital was an Ear Nose Throat doctor who tested Megan thoroughly for any ear issues that might be causing the dizziness. He could not find anything specific but he was very interested in Megan’s case and refered us to the Consultant Clinic where he said we would get an experienced Pediatrician who could pull all the doctors necessary for Megan to get diagnosed.

At the hospital for Sick Kids you can’t help but notice all the kids with burns, cancer and other serious medical illnesses. In reference to the way those kids are treated I give Sick Kids an A+.  Megan felt strongly that those kids deserved the attention of the doctors and she has cut her hair twice in the last 2 years to donate to kids with Cancer undergoing radiation.  So we totally respect the hospital for that work.

We finally got to meet our consult team . An old friendly doctor who fully analyzed Megan’s walk and I felt good, this doctor would take a hold of Megan’s case and fight for her, thats what I expected and hoped for.

We were scheduled for a consultation with Neurology and megan had an MRI, and a Cat Scan. The Neurology department didn;t find anything wrong in her results either. They decided to put Megan on a drug that might stop the dizziness. Megan took that drug for 3 weeks and got no results so we stopped that one.

The Pediatrician then suggested we bring Megan in for a week so that doctors could review her case and run any other tests while she was in the hospital.

Again I felt hopeful, surely with Megan in the hospital we would get answers. Our pediatrician forgot to mention he was leaving for Africa and would not be in the hospital while Megan was there. He had left instructions for Neurology, Psychology, and Physiotherapists to review her case in his absence.

I slept on a couch with Megan for a few nights that week. It was not easy being at home knowing she was lying in a hospital bed.

I very rarely saw any doctors with Megan that week. They did not run any tests on her other than testing her balance by making her do exercises in her room. I was getting concerned and things got worse when the psychologist came in to see Megan and suggested that we try putting her on Zoloft to settle her nerves and possibly resolve the dizziness. I cried and tried to make it clear that Megan had been told this was in her head a lot over the last 3 years and the last thing I wanted Sick Kids hospital to do was confirm that by putting her on an antidepressant.

My heart dropped at this point. I realized that the doctors were not on our side and they had no idea what was wrong with Megan. I do not feel that we ever truly had a doctor there that knew what was wrong with Megan and the reaction to patients that doctors can’t diagnose in Ontario is quite frequently to put them on anti depressants and say its all in their head.

I had higher expectations of the hospital for sick kids. I had been there as a child due to a kidney disease, my sister had been there for childhood illnesses. My sisters children had epilepsy and other stomach issues that were properly diagnosed and treated at the hospital.

Were they really sending Megan home with Anti depressants and a pat on the head. Yes thats what they did. I took her off the anti depressants after 3 weeks when they made no difference to her dizziness or her mood for that matter. 

We went to follow up appointments at the hospital but my mindset had changed, I knew they just wanted to see that this was in her head and they were not really trying to find the answer anymore.

We moved to the holistic side and changed Megan’s food to a very strict diet, We had her see an osteopath, We took her off the birth control pill and 3 months later she was able to get out of the wheel chair and walk again.

I wish I could say that I was happy with the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto. Sadly my experience tells me that they are great for kids that they can put into a silo of a specific disease. But as soon as you are a mystery patient they don’t treat you with respect or consider your case serious.

We now live in London Ontario and its 2 years since the hospital for Sick kids experience. It still exists as a knot in my stomach of disappointment, of breaking my heart.

We are giving London Ontario doctors a chance to diagnose Megan now.  Megan is still bleeding constantly and its been 2 years now. Megan sleeps 3 hours a day, Megan catches any cold or flu and holds on to it for a month instead of a week. Megan does have a diagnosis of Non Alchoholic Fatty Liver Disease but that is only a small piece of a much larger puzzle. I will not be going in with blind hope to the doctors in London. My expectations are low. If they cannot find out what is wrong with Megan I won’t freak out. We will just take her to the Cleveland Clinic in the states and hope that they will be able to find the root cause of Megan’s health issues.

I wrote this for the Toronto Star who wants to do a story on Hospital for Sick Kids. I hope that things change in the future for kids like Megan and they will take them seriously.

 

Michelle

Losing your financial status and finding happiness again without the money!

I listened to the pain and sorrow of the 450 workers that lost their jobs in London yesterday. Caterpillar decided to close a plant that had been providing families with a secure lifestyle in London for 0ver 60 years. They were underhanded and rude and did not think twice about destroying these families in such a difficult time in the job market.

I have been in similar shoes and I want to share some of that story in hopes it helps one of these workers cope.

In the year 2001 I earned 100,000 and my ex was earning about 65 k . We had lived the perfect life with trips to disney, cruises, kids in all kinds of activies. 2 cars, beautiful home, white picket fence so to speak.

In the year 2002 I lost that job in a large layoff that the technology company I had worked for over the past 13 years decided it wanted to go public.

In 2003 my marriage fell apart for numerous reasons but financial pressure was not one of them. A severance package kept us at that lifestyle level for that year.

In 2004 I chose to become an entrepreneur which was destined to fail based on the end of my marriage and needing to focus on keeping the kids stable.

In 2005 I decided to go back into technology and i took a position in sales knowing I could make up the 30k base pay with commissions.

This was not a reality as I was tasked with selling into a small business market and it was expensive product.

I quit that job after 9 months and was on unemployment for the first time. These were my darkest days, I couldn’t pay my bills, I was putting groceries on credit cards , i was using credit for everything hoping and believing that things would improve and i could pay those bills off in time. This was a huge mistake and i strongly pray not a trap you will let yourself fall into. Within 6 months i was severely depressed. Creditors were calling and I was avoiding the phone. I reached a very dark place and considered ending my life to stop the madness.

That was the day things changed. I picked up the phone and called my stepdad and told him how deeply I was in trouble. I called a counsellor and started sharing my pain. I also called a doctor and got put on anti depressants.

In 2006 I got a job at IBM with a starting salary of 20.00 per hour. it was contract position for 2 years with no benefits or vacation time. I looked at that as an opportunity to get into IBM permanently and life improved for those 2 years.

In 2008 the first recession hit and IBM did not renew my contract or offer full time. I had been in a sales role and the sales team had all struggled so it was not surprising that they got rid of contractors first.

In 2008 I was on unemployment for a 1o month period. I was lucky to have a stepfather who would chip in every month to make things liveable. At least we could keep the 2 bedroom basement apartment my daughter and i were living in.

But there was no money for extras at all. So we learned to find joy and happiness in other things.

We started going to the library to rent movies.

We started playing a lot of board games.

We started using discount coupons and air miles to go to occasional movie theatre.

We started going for long walks and appreciating the nature around us.

When there is no money you find other ways to amuse yourself.  Initially this is done to prevent boredom and keep kids amused. Then something changes and you realize you are actually having fun. I didn’t have to take the kids to the arcade, rent hotel rooms downtown, or go to fancy restaurants to be happy. I had found happiness in the simple things.

Personally for myself I found that going out dancing with friends and drinking water or pop was a cheap way to have laughs and forget about the bills! Going to Karoake made for a hilarious night of laughter and fun that can also be enjoyed for just the price of a pop.

I needed those escapes and they did keep me balanced when everything else was hard to face.

Now its 2012 and I am still earning less than half of what I made in 2002. But my life is one I am happy in. Can I afford vacations, trips to the theatre, concerts, spa treatments, new clothes, fancy hair cuts…nope! But I can keep a roof over my daughter and I and I can keep a puppy fed too. They bring me laughter, the volunteer work I do to raise awareness for Fatty Liver disease keeps me feeling good about myself and life is improving day by day.

Would I like to be earning 100k again. Of course I would. That would mean many freedoms but in the meantime I can be satisfied with the small joys.

To my new friends who just lost their jobs at EMD or FORD or anywhere else. I hope you can find some comfort knowing I survived and that today my son who is now 18 will say that he is most proud of my ability to get back up after the world shoots me down. I never give up. So for your children’s sake don’t give up and avoid some of my mistakes.

Hugs and thinking of you today!

Michelle

Positive Results of September 11?

My 15 year old daughter was given an assignment from her business teacher on Friday to find positive impacts and results of the September 11 terrorism attacks. The other half of the task was the negative impacts and that was incredibly easy to pull together.

The state of fear and mistrust of our neighbours! The lost lives, the lost jobs, the lost businesses, the huge impact on tourism and airlines!  The 3 trillion dollars spent on the war that resulted, the soldiers lost in the war, The impact on families losing fathers, mothers, children, aunts, uncles, grandparents. The impact on friends losing each other. The Post traumatic stress disorder results for first responders, the cancer results for first responders who inhaled massive amounts of poison chemicals while trying to find bodies that had disintegrated in the colllapse of the WTC. The heavy tole of being a survivor of this tragedy.

This list could go on and on!!

How on earth do you find positives in that mess?

The obvious ones were highlighted over the weekend in interviews with survivors. There was a huge sense of unity in families, cities, states, provinces, countries, continents and across the world with our allies. All political , religious, racism issues were put aside for at least a week as everyone felt relief at being alive, and empathizing with the families of those victims.

Sadly we all know that did not last, families started fighting again, politicians started arguing about war, religion was blamed for the attack and the world started looking at muslims differently.  It was devastating finding out that these radicals had immersed themselves into communities. They were soccer coaches, they were business people. You would never have suspected them in your day to day life. So when my family went out for dinner I couldn’t help but look at a dinner table of muslims and feel fear. I was so ashamed of myself as I had never considered myself racist. Thankfully that did not last either. As I came to my senses I remembered friends I had that were muslims and I realized correctly that this was only a small group of extreme radicals and i could not live my life in fear.

My daughter found a benefit of companies that make war weapons and supplies. Clearly the financial impact of this tragedy was a winfall for them.

Also Security guards, systems, disaster recovery companies would have benefited from the fear instilled in the general population.

Airport scanners, security testing, passport agencies all benefitted from the extra need to secure people in their travels from country to country.

Rudy Guiliani certainly became a hero. George Bush was also given a short term increase in popularity. How often can we say that for a politician!

Did anyone else hear that 20,000 people escaped the WTC on 9/11. First responders made that happen. But all we hear is that over 3000 people died.  The fact that 20,000 people escaped is to be celebrated while we mourn the loss of 3000. I wish that had been more reported on! First responders felt so deflated after not being able to rescue more than a handful of people in the rubble of the WTC. If they had been reminded of the 20,000 that they saved on 9/11 maybe fewer of them would be dealing with depression and having to quit their jobs due to the memories and pain.

Rebuilding the area of the WTC also has incredible results. While there were so many businesses lost and the financial sector was the key tenant in the area, the report today is that there are DOUBLE the number of businesses in the area and they are diverse and varied to represent all types of businesses today.

Can we ever forget that day for its negative impacts? Probably not, but it was a worthwhile exercise to look for the positive!

I hope you can find something in this list to make you think about this a bit differently. Can we celebrate the 20,000 survivors on a day of there own too?

 

Thanks

 

Michelle

The Ring – Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time she was married to a man with a drinking problem.

Once upon a time she chose to have an affair

Once upon a time the man also had an affair

Once upon a time they tried to save the marriage

Once upon a time she apologized

Once upon a time he could not forgive

Once upon a time he drank way to much

Once upon a time he sexually assaulted me

Once upon a time he regretted

Once upon a time he gave up drinking

Once upon a time he begged for forgiveness

Once upon a time he bought her a ring to apologize

Once upon a time he gave up trying to save marriage

Once upon a time he moved to porn

Once upon a time he started emotionally abusing her

Once upon a time he was obsessed

Once upon a time she gave up

Once upon a time she lost the ring

Once upon a time she found the ring

Once upon a time she found peace in herself

Once upon a time she knew she was doing the right things

Once upon a time she has confidence

Once upon a time she has strength

Once upon a time she can wear the ring again

The night my mother wanted me dead

The night that my life changed dramatically doesn’t strike me as different than other nights, I can’t tell you what started the fight. This was the worst day of my life and the most terror I had ever encountered. It still causes pain in me at 43 and after writing this part I had eye twitches, headache and a pit in my stomach for weeks. There is no way to hide from this memory, even today it is vivid and crystal clear and definitely life altering. I know rationally that there is nothing I could have done that would have explained this reaction. Stealing, lying, skipping school those were some of the things that started fights during this period, I don’t know why this particular fight escalated into such a deep rage.

I was 17, My mother was screaming at me and she went into the kitchen. She started coming at me with a steak knife in her hand screaming at me that she was going to kill me. My stepdad tried desperately to calm her down.  She was in such a deep rage that there was no stopping her. My stepdad told me to run to the powder room and lock myself in until she calmed down. I ran in and locked the door while he held my mother back. He let her go once I was safely locked in. My mother started stabbing the bathroom door repeatedly with the knife and I was screaming and crying on the other side. I knew she really wanted to kill me. I was petrified, shaking like a leaf, my heart pounding through my chest, wanting the floor to open up and swallow me. Who was going to rescue me?  Had my time really come? Did she really hate me this much, was I a really bad person?

Eventually she calmed down, it felt like it was hours but I suspect it was only minutes. My stepdad told me it was safe to come out but warned me for my safety to go to the basement family room and sleep there. I lied down in the darkness alone on the couch staring at the ceiling and cried my eyes out, I was still shivering and I could not stop. I heard someone coming down and my heart dropped, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep, hoping my mother wasn’t coming to finish the job.

 My mother came in and sat on the side of the couch I was sleeping on, and started stroking the hair off my tear stained face. She told me she loved me. This sickened me at such a deep level. This was not love.  I pretended to be soothed by her touch. All I wanted was for her to leave me alone. Eventually she got up and left.  

Something significant shifted in me that night. Any part of me that thought I was safe in my own home was gone. I was frozen inside. I stayed in the den thinking; I realized my stepdad had sent me to the only room in the house that has an exit, I could leave, and my odds on the street seemed safer than the odds of staying with my mother. I had no money; I couldn’t go upstairs and risk waking anyone up to grab clothes or any of my possessions. I was far too scared that my mother would kill me if she knew I was leaving. I decided to risk it and leave once and for all.

Never Surrender – Corey Hart

Just a little more time is all we’re askin’ for
‘Cause just a little more time could open closin’ doors
Just a little uncertainty can bring you down
And nobody wants to know you now
And nobody wants to show you how

So if you’re lost and on your own
You can never surrender
And if your path won’t lead you home
You can never surrender

And when the night is cold and dark
You can see, you can see light
‘Cause no one can take away your right
To fight and to never surrender

With a little perseverance you can get things done
Without the blind adherence that has conquered some
And nobody wants to know you now
And nobody wants to show you how

So if you’re lost and on your own
You can never surrender
And if your path won’t lead you home
You can never surrender

And when the night is cold and dark
You can see, you can see light
‘Cause no one can take away your right
To fight and to never surrender, to never surrender

And when the night is cold and dark
You can see, you can see light
And no one can take away your right
To fight and to never surrender, to never surrender

Oh, time is all we’re askin’ for to never surrender
Oh, you can never surrender
And time is all we’re askin’ for
Stand your ground, never surrender
Oh, I said, “You never surrender”

I Never Surrender!