Mental health awareness is one of the most important things that has been long overlooked. As a society we shy away from weakness. Until recently and even in some areas, some families, we still shame men for crying, men for being a stay at home parent; anyone for seeking out therapy or even worse medication. It’s a scandal, they don’t need it, take a walk in nature.
These feelings come from a place of misunderstanding. From the lucky ones, the ones who have never felt the soul crushing feelings of depression, the exhaustion and inability to breathe that accompanies anxiety. Maybe they’ve experienced it to some degree. But those of us who have seen our darkest place, the place that tells us we shouldn’t exist anymore, we know better. We know that if a pill can help that it’s okay to take it. That if we need to check out for awhile that it’s okay.
Through reading the “All Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion” I was reminded of how fragile life and our psyche really is. That at any moment a bomb can go off, figuratively or literally and throw us into a spinning vortex.
I was soooo proud of Sookie when she decided to seek out a therapist. I felt so awful for her that she felt the need to hide it. Though given her mother’s reaction when she found out I completely understand. But I was so proud, that in spite of the outside factors, the need to keep it secret, she still made that crucial first step. Sookie reached out to the therapist. She found a way to make it happen and she found a way to recover from the bomb that went off in her life.
Sookie spent her entire life wondering if she was going to end up crazy. Like the relatives she had in a mental institution and the erratic behavior of her own mother. The people who come before us genetically, their struggles are important to know. The more we know about the struggles they went through the better prepared we are to handle them if they hit us. Take Sookie for instance, she had letters tucked away in a safety deposit box for her family, should she have inherited the family “curse” and ended up lost in her own mind.
I am a very strong proponent for being honest with your kids. As someone who struggles with my own mental health and the shame I first felt when I couldn’t be happy, I believe it is crucial to give children the truth. Children are resilient and what is a bombshell to us is often just a fact to them, that hardly even phases them. My son knows mental illness is a thing, he knows that sometimes people are sad. He isn’t quite 5 years old. He knows I have days where I am sad, days where all I want to do is sleep. You know his response when I say “Mommy’s having a bad mental day”? He gives me a hug, he tells me he loves me, he tells me he hopes I feel better, and the day moves on. He doesn’t treat me like I’m made of glass, he doesn’t freak out and think the world is ending. He comforts me and moves on.
My point in this is, Lenora should have been honest with Sookie. Telling a child from the beginning that they are adopted wouldn’t have made Sookie any less hers. In fact it probably would have saved Sookie a lifetime of pain. A lifetime of feeling bad that she wasn’t enough of a “Simmons” because genetically she isn’t (don’t get me wrong, she is still a part of their family, she is still a “Simmons” but biologically there’s differences, then again every child is different anyway but that’s a rant for another time).
Had Lenora simply said Sookie, I love you, you are my daughter in every way, but I didn’t give birth to you, or however you explain that to a young child (I know there are books out there, but having never been in the situation myself I wouldn’t know which to recommend). Sookie wouldn’t have an identity crisis at 60...because she would have known already. The paperwork would have come and she would have been like, oh yeah I wasn’t born Sookie I was born Ginger. No crisis, no betrayal. Only a simple fact.
The lesson I found in this novel is this: Being honest with your family, especially your children is the most important gift you can ever give them. Being honest gives them strength, it gives them an edge in the world, an understanding of exactly where they are coming from.
"The All Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion" by Fannie Flagg
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_All_girl_Filling_Station_s_Last_Reun/H-aJDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
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