I just don’t know but if helps anyone at all then I feel like I should share.
I’ve been a reader of a blog for about 20 years. The writer is a woman, author, artist, Photographer, mama to two children and when I started to read her she wasn’t a mom yet.
We became friends. Blogging was new. I didn’t know how to do everything and I asked her for help.
When she had her children she was struck by debilitating postpartum depression and she went to visit “ The Ranch” “ Sticky sock vacation” and from then on she struggled hard. Infant hood was difficult, toddlers were difficult, preteens difficult…. You get the idea. She went through a divorce after her husband found her hanging in the basement. She was given an HGTV show but couldn’t do it. Medications didn’t work. Therapy didn’t work. She’d sit in her closet crying calling her own Mama to come mama her. She tried everything, including self medicating.
She felt weak and broken but every week thousands of readers followed her journey and she was my friend.
She wrote a book about her taking part in an experimental treatment so dangerous that she had to sign away her life, literally. She was forced deeper down than a coma, brain dead, then brought back to life. She pushed through those treatments. Her parents by her side, her mother her biggest cheerleader. They attended every “ death session.” Fed her, cradled her and as they are devout, Mormons( she was not…. At All) they prayed for her.
She had two children to live for, after all.
The book was so deep and beautifully written that I asked my husband to read it so that he could understand what depression feels like as she wrote about in a way that I could not seem to myself. Wrote how we are needing support, not for people to try and fix us which is my husband’s go to mode. “ let’s go on more walks! See a movie! Shop at Target, meet with people for dinner!” No, God damnit! Those sound excruciating! Don’t try and fix it. Let me cry. Let me sob and hate my brain and the abuse that caused my brain to be my stupid brain and why can’t I just feel normal?!?! Mother Fuck!!!!!! And nod. Hold my hand. Look into my eyes and by letting me flush it out, I can help me. Just sit there as I do. Then let’s hit Target!
The media knew her as Dooce. I knew her as Hea-ther B Arm-strong..ALWAYS add the B!!
She died a couple of weeks ago. Announced on Instagram, Twitter, and the NATIONAL NEWS! She’d touched millions of women. We watched her struggle and get back up and continue the circle until finally, she killed herself. She was the hardest fighter I’d ever known. My heart sank. God, if someone who fights as hard and as long as Heather has can’t fight anymore then where is the hope?
The world has lost something that should have moved it off its axis. Yet, it didn’t. It never does. It just goes on, sadder, lonelier, harder….. But someday her family will laugh again and then someday her family will talk about her and laugh again and her children will have lives and be happy and find love and somewhere she will be watching.
Tracy
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