Things We Need To Talk About....More

• Death

I’ve been reading a few books on bereavement recently. This is not because my cat died. I am very aware that cats and people are different even though my heart aches for Scout every day. My introduction to death was when I was eight years old, several years after my first grandfather died. There had been a bad thunderstorm. My dad’s best friend was helping out a neighbor in his basement. He stepped in a puddle and died of electrocution. My last memory of him was him offering me a marshmallow at a barbeque. I don’t remember much else except he smiled alot and left behind three children. I found out by overhearing my mom telling my aunt. She said he passed away (I didn’t learn how brutal the death was until later). I was eight years old. I went to the funeral and stood outside with my dad with what seemed like half the town. I had never seen anyone cry so hard as his widow. It honestly made me uncomfortable. It still makes many people uncomfortable. We need to change this but as of now it’s okay to have a messy breakup. It’s not okay to lose your husband.

• Sex

I don’t want to blame my mother or father for anything here. But the fact is no matter how much I wrack my brains I can’t remember if they or when they gave me the sex talk. The fact is when I was piecing the parts of sex together I was already very much into puberty but I didn’t have much information. I didn’t know what a clit was. I didn’t masturbate. I didn’t know my body was an instrument of pleasure. I knew it for soccer and singing and going on big roller coasters and conquering waves at the beach. When I was sexually assaulted, all that changed. Because I was exposed to sex before I even knew what it was supposed to be, I blamed myself and spent time into my adulthood feeling dirty.

• Birth control/ Infertility/ Hormones

Everybody believes two young people have sex and a baby instantly happens. When I was seventeen, I was told I have PCOS- polycystic ovarian syndrome. It is the leading cause of infertility in women. It also causes a hormone imbalance that leads to embarrassing body hair which has plagued me from puberty into adulthood. Cruel men (always men) have tried to weaponize my hormones against me, insinuating that I have a mustache or that I was actually a man. When you are an insecure adolescent nothing hurts more. I have been seeing a gynecologist since I was sixteen and because of the PCOS I was immediately placed on birth control. I’ve grown comfortable with being on birth control. It has stabilized what used to be horrific periods and it has done it’s job: kept me from becoming pregnant. However, birth control (other than condoms) does not protect against STDs and they are very prevalent in today’s society. Genital herpes, for example, infects 1 in 6 adults worldwide.

• Alcohol and drugs

Most parents just assume their children will stay away from alcohol and drugs. I know my parents did. I know my parents never did anything wrong: they are utterly blameless for the fact that I developed a drinking problem. My brother never drinks even though he has been legal for quite some time. Neither of my parents had problems either. I think it was just my way of self-medicating. My dad was actually a police officer so I know I should have stayed away from marijuana which really fucked with my head. One time I was doing dabs with the local dealer and it looked like the walls were actually moving. On another occasion I was convinced a John Lennon poster was staring me down.

• Mental Illness

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this. I think when a kid starts hitting puberty, both parents should sit them down and talk to them about some of the more hard hitting mental illnesses: depression, GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), social anxiety, panic disorder. As they get older, they could talk to them about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (types 1 or 2). This is doubly important if there is a history of mental illness in the family. Otherwise the kid (like me) might be going through hell and not know whats going on. I don’t blame my parents. I don’t think they even knew what OCD was and they certainly never suspected bipolar ran in the family (we now think  my grandma was bipolar not schizophrenic as she was diagnosed). 

Some of these topics might be seen as taboo. But communication can help us so much more in society. That’s why these are things we need to talk about….more.