Hello Justin Trudeau

Okay, Mr. Trudeau,

First let me say I'm a fan.  I like your policy of inclusiveness and I remember it as a legacy from your Father.  I like what you have done with international diplomacy. I applaud your inclusion of vast numbers of women and all ages in your cabinet. I think your wife and children are darling: as do you.

However, you and I would have words over your legalization of marijuana.  Yes, my friend, I may be of the demographic that seems to think that is a great idea but I disagree wholeheartedly. I don't want it, to smell it, to have secondhand exposure or to have my children exposed to it.

I lived through the 70's.  I watched the result of dealers lacing pot with LSD and PCP.  I worked in a youth center:  I have seen kids between 14 and 25 burn out on  marijuana. I have seen them lack coping skills and develop mental health issues out of nowhere. I have been helpless already as they spiral down into other addictions.

I imagine you would say: "Well, Jayne. No worries: I will have stringent controls in place and only legal dealers will be able to sell pot. "  Really?  That sounds pretty naive to me.   For decades there has been an illegal system in place.  Those selling illegal drugs are not going to suddenly say, " Hey, Mr. Trudeau just made this legal so I guess I better find a regular job!"

No, they are going to see the legal system of distribution as competition.  They are going to need an edge to compete.  Competition tends to drive prices down and content up.  Dealers will be looking to make their product a little fancier and more addictive.  Hmmm, almost sounds like they will begin lacing pot with lsd, pcp, ecstasy, or gawd help us all, fentanyl.

You might answer that the police will shut that right down.  I doubt that.  Even in my small town, the police have there hands full busting a meth lab every couple of days only to watch two more spring up to take its place.   They also have a few other things to do: stolen property (mostly by drug addicts), murders, assaults, white collar crime, stalkings and rapes.   So, I highly doubt they will have the resources or the inclination to spend on what will be the illegal dealers of what you will have made a legal drug.

Rethink it Mr. Trudeau.   Our addiction treatment centers and hospitals are already burdened by the current level of addiction.  At very least make the age required for legal partaking in this "past time" 25, 40 or even 65.

Next year, when my apartment is full of pot smoke from my neighbours- like it is on the 20th and 1st of the month now and my asthmatic child texts me to to call the police-   I won't be able to.   Can I please give her your personal cell number to text instead? It's your deal, Mr. Trudeau:  I hope you can handle the consequences.

The Eff Word

It is like it's an accent.  A dialect. Perhaps, in the small town where I live babies speak their first sentences peppered with it.  It's not Fire Truck.

A light bulb came on for me today about how the people I interact with, speak.  You see, I just spent five days in another city.  A larger city.  I spent a lot of time downtown with a variety of people:  business people, vacationers, homeless people, gangbangers and teenagers.  There were the elderly dealing with advancing age and mobility issues. People who are busy, some who have very little, lots who are frustrated in ways big and small.  Some of the time I spent in the hospital where I met people in very high stress situations: people who were losing and had just lost family. People who had friends and family members admitted for long stretches of time.  The families I met at the hospital had every reason to swear.  I spent time other places too. The mall, stores, restaurants even cabs and city buses. I don't remember hearing that one word, not even once. Or any of his less offensive younger cousins.

I hardly noticed when I was there but there was something missing.  That accent.  In the whole time I was in London, Ontario I didn't hear anyone punctuate their sentence with an eff bomb.  In fact, I would be hard pressed to say that I heard anyone swear even once.

Now, I certainly cannot say that no one swears in the city.  That would be an effing ridiculous statement.  What I can say is that I returned home to my apartment today and within ten minutes had opened my balcony door.  Floating up to me in the warmish night air were the dulcet tones of my neighbours having what passes for a normal everyday conversation around here.

It went something like this: " And then I effing told him that he effing needed to make an effing call.  They are not going to effing fix his effing car if he doesn't effing tell them when he effing wants it done."  It went on longer but I am sure you get the drift.  Ah, there's that local dialect again.  I must be home.

Mind you, I wasn't witnessing an argument.  The conversation was not heated or debated.  Just one man passing along a story about his day to another.  I wish I could say that it is an isolated thing but it is not.  This is the way a lot of people speak here.  A chat on the bus, a conversation at work, a simple coffee order at the local Tim's......pretty much every day, multiple times a day you witness this use of vulgar language.  Even in schoolkids, teenagers and the elderly.  Wow, I would say especially amongst the middleaged population.

So I ask why.  I was raised mostly in Niagara and Stratford.  I really do not remember it there.  No one felt the only way to be heard was to salt our speech with nasty epithets.  Truth, most of the people I knew spoke plainly or eloquently with no swearing at all. Sure, there were a few people who threw in the occasional "bad" word.  They thought they were rebels and we mostly laughed at them for how stupid it sounded.  Oooh, big man said a bad word.....I'm shaking.  With mirth.

Does it bother me? Not on a moral level but it is tiresome to hear daily.  Being around it  I find myself slipping into this habit.  That, in and of itself, bothers me quite a bit.  After spending most of my life with pretty good verbal hygiene I don't like being infected with the local accent. I fight it consciously but it is slipping in.

It's annoying to hear the kindergarteners speaking this way- and they do.  There is so much more to say.  More productive things, more positive, more useful words.  It is frustrating to try to deal with an individual's concerns when their go-to method of communicating is so inherently disrespectful to both the listener and speaker. I wonder if no one ever taught any of them how to make a valid point with clear emphatic language and tone.

I also wonder if they kiss their Mothers with those dirty mouths. Bet Momma would be proud.

Darkest Whispers

We do not talk about it. Suicidal thoughts. In sad reality we talk about TV shows, news reports or third person what ifs but we don’t talk about our own experiences. If we mention someone ending their own life: we whisper. There is a lot of fear in words we feel we must whisper.

Its taboo. Most rational adults know that even a simple reference to the darkest thoughts one can have leads to consequences, judgements, overreaction. Will my spouse respect me? My friends be overly concerned? My doctor lock me up? My boss stop trusting me?

It's controversial. Suicide itself was still illegal in Canada in 1972. Try it and you’ll be locked up if you fail. Many religions prohibit self harm.  All major world religions prohibit suicide. Catholic rhetoric was that those who took their own life went to purgatory and not heaven. Some Fundamentalists still believe it damns you to hell. Jews don’t condone it. Jewish suicides are buried in a separate portion of the cemetary and denied some burial traditions. Hindus believe it violates the idea of nonviolence. Muslim teachings say " The Prophet said, “He who commits suicide by throttling shall keep on throttling himself in the Hell Fire (forever) and he who commits suicide by stabbing himself shall keep on stabbing himself in the Hell-Fire.” It is considered a form of murder and a grave sin by all these religions: the murder of one's self as wrong as taking another life. Socially it has been called selfish, crazy or cowardice. Centuries of judgement and concrete thinking that  taking your life by your own hand is just plain selfish, wrong, and evil. Even now, you’ll find this attitude without searching too far.

Times have changed though right? We talk about it now don’t we? Perhaps, we talk about 13 reasons why or Rehteah Parsons…..or how tragic it is when someone we know commits suicide. However, when we do talk about it now-unless the conversation turns to euthanasia- it is immediately labelled a mental health issue.

I find that thinking demeaning and outdated.

Suicidal thoughts, on their own, do not necessarily indicate a mental health problem. In fact, they can be part of a persons coping mechanism and a sign of a very healthy mind.

Dwelling and obsessing about suicide or committing suicide are quite different from having the occasional suicidal ideation.

Yet, if a person you loved or you were responsible for mentioned the idea of suicide….Would you react judgementally, immediately try to “talk them out of it”?  I think that way of reacting is assumptive. It is hardly a rational response but a visceral one. A giant oh no! akin to stomping your feet…..and just as effective.

Speaking personally my friend Heather could tell you that the poster in my highschool locker read in lovely script “vaguely suicidal”. Even at the time she said that her Dad, a doctor, would have been royally irritated to know she made that for me. It was, however, my truth at the time. Did I kill myself? No. Was it attention seeking, no: It was deep in my locker for me and no one else. Only Heather knew I had it. Why was it there? Well, life was pretty crappy and in my mind at least, the thought that I could escape it was comforting. The idea that though there was nothing under my control I could still decide whether to be.  Was I crazy? Nope. Would those in charge have ordered counseling if they had seen it? Yupp. Most likely outcome. Did I need a therapist? Nope.

Like I said….having the thought if this does not change I could do that….is not always unhealthy. It does not mean I was in some immediate danger of harming myself. In fact_ that visual reminder was an outlet, a vent, a way help myself overcome the difficulties that stood in my way. All was not lost because I felt I had a choice. But I still could not speak to anyone about that. I knew that meant at very least a swift trip to the school psychologist and quite possibly a mind altering prescription.

I am in no way minimizing mental health or the tragedy of suicide. When my friend Tony killed himself I was devasted . He was full of life and had a bright future. He in no way ever indicated depression or spoke of ending his life. That’s the key- he never spoke of it. Why didnt he?

Perhaps he was not interested in hearing platitudes and reasons why he shouldn't. Or didnt want his life disrupted or to see that godawful head tilt people do when they feel sorry for you. Maybe he thought his parents would yell. I'll never know but I do know for sure he did not have what you would call mental health issues, he was not unhappy, bullied or selfish. I do know he discussed his plans with no one. I have known two others who also did not speak of it. All three took their own lives. It might be anecdotal evidence but in my world each one of them shared a silence about their inner thoughts and feelings. Two of them you would describe, if you had known them, as having perfect lives. Perhaps that is why, like most of us, they felt they couldn't share their darkness. Scared of shattering the perfectly happy, lovely person, responsible child myth.

We need to speak. This is something we need to let people say without our fear, judgment, invasive concern, efforts to "fix" them, labelling or social stigma. Listening without silencing them.

I think if honesty was highly prized in society many more of us would cop to our darkest feelings. If we had no fear of reprisal we would speak of our own despairs large and small. We are sometimes, just too content with whatever the common way of looking at a situation happens to be. We have to learn to let people talk despite our discomfort. We need to listen and learn instead of talking about and judging. In my mind at least, we must question the way we look at whispered words.