To say recent history has sucked would be an understatement. But amidst the hot dumpster fire that is this decade thus far, we're looking for a silver lining.

People still have inherent good in them, despite what cable news has to say about it. Here, we're exploring good deeds and firm hugs, smiles and kisses, sunshine and walking on rainbows. Well, maybe not that last one, but you get the point.

Anonymous writers share their personal experiences with stories about acts of kindness and what is good in the world today.  Stay on the positive side!

Anonymous Stories About Acts of Kindness - The Doe

Acts of Kindness

When I was ten I saw my friend Adam plummet to his death from a tree at our sleepaway camp. At the time, I recall thinking that it couldn't be possible. I was certainly aware that tragedies happen all the time, but they just didn’t happen to me, or to people I knew. My bubble of safety had been burst.

My parents are both Hasidic Jews—my mother comes from a Satmar family and my father comes from a Bobov family—and growing up I always saw my only possible career choices as the stereotypically Jewish doctor, lawyer or accountant. Watching Adam die probably had something to do with my decision to pursue a medical path.

By my mid-20s I’d left medicine and the New York Hasidic community to work for a software company in Wisconsin. It was my first real exposure to anything outside the tight-knit world I grew up in, and it was eye-opening. The ultra-Orthodox community I grew up in prided itself in helping strangers, and taught us that non-Jews didn't know the meaning of help or kindness. But everyone I met at my new job wanted to help out any way they could.

If you look anywhere else in the world—at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, at what Jimmy Carter did—they didn’t do those things because of religion. They did them because they believed they were good things. You can have someone who's very religious and is a horrible person, and you can have someone who's not religious who does good deeds. I've not seen any evidence that religion plays a role in that. I don't think religion gets to take credit for all the good that religious people do, just like religion shouldn't take the blame for all the bad things that religious people do. It's up to the person themselves. 

I eventually lost my faith, but I didn’t lose my desire to save people’s lives. During my EMT training, I learned about cadaveric organ donations. This whole topic was new to me and I couldn't help wondering why I hadn't learned about it sooner. I began pushing the subject on some of my religious friends and family, but everyone had their own reasons why they couldn’t: We have an obligation to bury the entire body (halachically true, but saving a life trumps that commandment); our entire body is needed in order to be resurrected when the Messiah comes (tell that to the victims of the Holocaust); our parents and grandparents didn't do it (they also didn't drive cars).

Finally, one of them asked me, “Well, why don't you do it while you're alive?” And I said, “You know what? You're right. Why not?” I looked into it, and it turns out that if you donate when you're alive, the organ lasts longer in the recipient. Cadaveric organs don't last as long. So there's no question that it's more beneficial for the recipient to receive a living donor's organ. 

I was in the medical ethics society for the university I was in at the time. One of the advisers there was a doctor who hooked me up with a nephrologist, who hooked me up on Facebook with a woman named Rachel, who set up matches between organ donors and the people who need them. I reached out to her and expressed an interest in donating a kidney. She set me up with a recipient who’d been waiting for 15 years for a match. I was that match.

Unfortunately a scan showed that one of my kidneys hadn’t developed properly, which meant that they couldn't take either one. I was furious about this but I didn't really have any options. I tried coming back to Rachel asking if I could donate a part of my liver to a different patient instead. Unfortunately, altruistic liver donations were not allowed in New York at that time. That ended my hopes of becoming a living donor.

Four years later, Rachel called me up to tell me that the rules had changed, and altruistic liver donations were now accepted. She asked if I was still interested in donating a part of my liver, and after talking it over with my wife I told her I was, and we started making arrangements.

Donating an organ isn’t as scary or as big of a deal as people think it is. With kidneys, you're usually out of the hospital within four days. It's very low risk, and you’re completely functional after you donate. (Most diseases that take one kidney usually take the other, so not donating doesn't make you any safer.) With livers, it's a bit riskier, but there's still nothing to it. Hospitals won't let something go wrong with an organ donor. If something happened to you, that's the end of the department for the foreseeable future. And while you’re there recovering they treat you like a king. 

Plus you get to save a life. There's no reason not to do it.

Before the surgery, I remember sitting in pre-op and hearing the person I assumed was the recipient talking to her husband. I don't recall much of what she said. 

The surgery went fine. They ended up needing to take my gallbladder out in order to get to the liver. The operation involved two small incisions on either side of my abdomen and a longer incision down the middle. I woke up nine hours later and remembered almost nothing in between.

While I was recovering, Rachel let me know that the recipient had expressed an interest in meeting me before I left. On my third day in the hospital, I stopped by their room. When I walked in the door the recipient burst into tears and her husband came over to me and started blessing me over and over. He handed me a framed thank-you letter and a bag. I told him I couldn't take it, since compensating people for organ donations is illegal, but he insisted. I thanked him and left. 

It was an extremely awkward encounter. Between her tears and his blessings, I just wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible. I don't know what to do or say. I don't do very well with emotions and  I've never been great with people. I kick myself for not handling it better and maybe developing a relationship with them. Part of me wishes I hadn't messed with the experience by visiting their room at all. 

But I would donate an organ again without a second thought. I believe everyone should. Thousands of people are dying every single year for no good reason. 

To me, donating an organ felt like I was completing a mission that was the sole purpose of my existence. I had been given a chance to save a life. My recipient was supposed to be gone in six months if she didn't get a liver. Instead, she lived. She got to see her kids get married. She got to experience life a bit longer. 

I don't know how she's doing. I hope she's still alive. But it's none of my business. You don't do this to get something out of it, and if you go into it that way you won't get anything out of it at all. And you’ll regret it. You'll regret it. You do it because you get a chance to do something good, then you move on.

Health

I'm an Organ Donor and You Should Be, Too

I grew up in the ‘80s, when bangs were big and shoulder pads were plentiful. My parents fought to make a living after a huge economic recession in the early years of my life. I remember the feeling of fear and uncertainty as my dad searched for work. 

He worked as a roofer in a rather remote area of the Texas Hill Country. Roofing in the August heat in Texas has got to be one of the worst jobs on the planet, and my dad sacrificed sleep and sanity in an attempt to keep us fed. Eventually, he transitioned to building whole houses, and the stress level just went up as he tried to hold it all together while learning the business the hard way.  

At the time, the custom home business wasn’t booming. People were struggling financially, as the country climbed out of the hold of the recession. My father interviewed for different jobs in other states that might provide more security, but nothing panned out. Instead, he and my mom carried on fighting for work, trying to make ends meet and raising three kids. It was feast or famine. Some months we had money, and others we had next to none. 

My mom grew up in Scotland, and was by nature very frugal. I know most people who grew up in this time remember plastic tubs being reused for all manner of leftovers. My mom took it up a notch, also washing out Ziploc bags, bread bags and anything else she thought could be put to use. She didn’t buy herself anything—I’m fairly sure she wore the same clothes for the first 15 years of my life, and I never knew her to go shopping for fun. 

Looking back now, I realize how hard my parents worked, not only to keep my brothers and I fed and clothed, but also to keep us free from their grown-up worries. We played hard, making use of every inch of the property we lived on, finding adventures as we explored the forest next to us. 

As kids, we weren’t conscious of how much money we had, but we did understand how we were doing based on my parents’ stress level and where we shopped. Most weeks, we strolled down the generic aisle that grocery stores had in those days, with the depressing black-and-white packages that blandly stated what type of food they contained. We would also go to the day-old bread store, where we’d sometimes find very little and other times score big loaves of bread (cinnamon raisin being the most exciting variety), and even pastries. 

On one of these occasions, my brothers and I were following my mother around the tiny shop. We’d finally made it to the checkout line and were desperately hoping that we were almost done with the shopping. 

A little old woman with a different skin color than us was checking out in front of us, trying to buy a loaf of bread and a chocolate cake. She pulled out her cash to pay, and realized she didn’t have enough for both. Her face fell, as she put her head down and paid for the loaf of bread, leaving the cake behind as she hobbled towards the door with her cane. 

I watched my mother, who had barely enough money for our bread that week, pause for only a moment, looking from the chocolate cake on the cashier’s shelf to the back of the woman slowly making her way out of the store. She slapped her money down on the counter, picked up the cake and ran—with the sweetest gift of love and sacrifice in chocolate form—to the little lady getting in her car outside. I remember the look on the woman’s face: sheer surprise and wonder that someone had noticed her pain and had stepped up in compassion and kindness.

It was a simple gesture, and we didn’t go hungry because of it. But my mother’s sacrifice that day stuck with me, and I can still see that little woman’s blissful face in my mind. To me, it’s a symbol of the way compassion and sacrificial love can break down all sorts of barriers, even if it’s just in the form of chocolate cake. I am convinced that for that woman, it wasn’t just cake that my mom gave her. It was the gift of being seen, loved and given hope for another day.

Tearjerkers

Motherhood

My Mother Taught Me Generosity Even Though We Were Poor

I was a college sophomore when I won an award for my academic greatness. Funny thing about the word sophomore: It derives from the Greek words for “wise” and “fool.” 

That night, to celebrate, I got together with some friends, chugged a 24-ounce Four Loko, and blacked out. When my vision cleared up I was still drunk in the ER with my teary-eyed parents. As I drifted back into unconsciousness, I thought to myself: “This what rock bottom feels like.”

The sunlight pouring into my hospital room woke me up the next morning. A doctor stared at me from the foot of the bed. His face was long and tired. He already knew the news that showed how foolish I was to think I’d yet hit bottom.

“When your mother carried you in,” he told me, “you had a blood alcohol content of 0.30. Now that you have fluids, you don’t have to worry about that. We still need to keep you for more testing because some of your results weren’t good. While you were out we performed a CT scan of your brain, and we noticed that a growth at the fourth ventricle has caused you to form hydrocephalus.”

Funny thing about the word hydrocephalus: It also has Greek origins. Its translation, “water on the brain,” is apt. Think of it like this: Vienna naturally floods, but global warming has raised water levels and is now destroying the city’s infrastructure. In my head, a tumor causes the water levels to rise, which mashes my brain tissue. The pressure is so intense that when babies get hydrocephalus, the water bulges through their underdeveloped skulls.

Unlike global warming, my problem couldn’t be ignored. Two surgeries, 28 rounds of radiation, over a month as an inpatient, two haircuts, three broken friendships and one employment termination can really change a person.

When I awoke from my first brain surgery, equipment taped to various parts of my body blinked and pinged. I saw my mother and smiled.

“Yes, it is, sweetheart,” my mom said.

At my bedside, I saw a cup of water. I had been in surgery for five hours, and even though it felt like 30 seconds to me, I knew I deserved to treat myself. 

I reached for the cup, assuming that I still knew how to grab it. Instead, my hand shot in front of me and knocked it over, spilling water everywhere. That’s how I found out I’d lost most of the motor skills on the left side of my body, my dominant side.

I needed to relearn how to walk, eat and write. 

It took two months working at it to see improvement, but I was never the same. I could always feel the tugging of scar tissue in the back of my head, reminding me that one night, while I slept, a strange man came into my house and stole things. Things like plants growing by the windowsill. Things like ash in the fireplace, or ants on the ground. To others, he took something that needed to go. To them he took, as a biopsy stated, “a WHO grade II ependymoma,” or in more general terms, a cancerous brain tumor. Even though I didn’t know I had this mass for most of the time it was inside of me, I missed it when it was gone. I felt like I lost a part of myself.

I despised my surgeon. This man who had apparently saved my life had no remorse for what he took. What if, wrapped up in that pesky mass, was hope? My self-esteem? Sensation in the left side of my body? Is that why I no longer felt any of these things? I spent a long time limping around with my numb left leg, expecting it to suddenly feel the floor under my feet or the engagement of my leg muscles. I spent an even longer time waiting for everything to become normal again, waiting to feel beautiful again, only to remain stuck in this ugly, scarred-up, weak form. That bastard did this to me.

I went back to college and was miserable. Class was unbearable. My professors pissed me off. I was friends with white girls who felt comfortable unironically saying the N-word to me in private. And my head pounded constantly. I spent most of my days in bed.

Thoughts of death followed me everywhere. I would watch a clock tick and wonder how many people in the world at that very moment were taking their last breath. I saw children playing in the street and wondered whether tumors already were growing inside them.

I desperately wanted a mentor. I looked to my mother, but she kept crying at the thought of having almost lost her child. I looked to my friends, but they thought they were invincible and stared blankly when I told them my fears. I looked to professors, but I knew more about my pain than they ever could. At last, I closed my eyes and saw the one thing I assumed no one would take from me, the back of my eyelids. I felt my eyes, tired and bloodshot from sleepless nights, relax under the gentle caress of their protectors. And I realized, in my gratitude for their service, that my assumption was flawed. When it comes to loss, everything is fair game.

People tell me that if they were in my shoes, they’d kill themselves. It makes me smile every time. I know I'm a wiser person for having suffered through what I’ve been through. I conquered something. I’m a dragon slayer.

Today, I walk down a busy street on a typical evening. I hear the artificial wind of cars speeding past in such a hurry to get home from the daily grind that they clobber potholes in the road ahead. I see friends stumbling together outside the neighborhood bar. I see homeless men picking through garbage, and men in hoodies standing with their backs to the wall of a dark alley. As the sun sets and twilight closes the day, I look down to the pavement and see our shadows, stretching out on the sidewalk, beginning to fade into night.

They Never Tell You What Brain Surgery Cuts Out of You

Three months ago I lost my father to cancer. Or, rather: I had to help cancer take him. I held his hand as he took his last breath. I felt his pulse slow until it came to a stop. I watched his chest, wasted to skin and bones, subtly rise and fall and not rise again. And I had to experience the trauma of giving him that peace.

My father’s cancer started in his esophagus, then it spread, to his stomach, his liver, his thyroid. Finally, they found a large brain tumor behind his left ear. The cancer in his esophagus made it extremely difficult for him to speak and to eat. He lived a month after his diagnosis. At the miserable end, no medical professional, no hospice nurse, could grant his wish to end his own life. Instead, it fell to his family. It fell to me.

I flew to Pennsylvania from Florida to visit him. He’d said he didn’t want me to see him. In health, he was very good-looking: six-foot-two, sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, 250 pounds of muscle. He could be proud, even vain. When I heard he’d lost 100 pounds, I couldn’t imagine what I’d find. He was always a strong figure in my life, literally and figuratively. I knew I could never live with the regret of not seeing him. He and I went back and forth over the phone about whether or not I could fly up to see him, because of COVID, because of his immune system, whatever excuse he came up with. He finally broke my heart with the truth. “Honey, I do want to see you,” he said. “I’m just scared it will be the last time.” I asked him if he was scared to die. Except I couldn’t say the words “to die.” He knew what I meant. “No,” he said. “I’m not scared.”

My dad had decided to leave the hospital and refuse more treatment. I was angry with him for giving up. That was, until I saw him. When I got to his house his girlfriend told me he was upstairs sleeping. She said I should pop my head through the doorway to see him before I went in to visit, so I could compose myself. She asked whether I'd seen Dallas Buyers Club with Matthew McConaughey.

When I looked through the bedroom door my body shut down. I fell to the floor, hyperventilating, crying. I couldn’t believe the person in bed was my father. He was shirtless, with a sheet partially covering his right leg and exposing the adult diaper he was wearing. His bodybuilder frame was boney and limp. His skin was a glassy, pale yellow. His eyes, sunken into his head, were ringed in black. His cheekbones were razors. His teeth protruded from behind his lips.

I caught my breath and wiped my eyes. I knew I had to be strong for him.

When I walked into the room, my dad tried to cover himself. I walked over to him and helped him with the sheet. I kissed him and felt his cheekbone on my lips. Neither of us knew what to say. I held his hand and told him Mom had sent some pictures for him to look at, if he wanted. He nodded and mumbled, “Sure, honey.” I took out the large white envelope my mother gave me with tons of old pictures from when he was younger. I pulled out a photo of him and his friend posing, around 18 years old. The back read “Sears Pose.” He laughed. I asked if he wanted to see more. He said, “No, not really.” I asked him if he wanted to hear about my cat Arthur getting into a scrap with a dog? “Not really.” He was defeated. He said he needed a minute. I left and told him I would be back to say goodbye.

Downstairs were my two uncles and my aunt. We talked about his will, his wishes, his cremation. I signed papers. My uncle told me that in the hospital my father told him after he saw me he’d be ready to “go.” Once I said goodbye, they thought, he might pass away: “He needs to know you’re gone so he can stop trying to hold on.”

I went back upstairs to say goodbye to my father, forever. I kissed him, this time on his forehead. I held his hand and told him I was going to leave now, and that I loved him very much and he was a good father. He told me to tell my brothers that he loved them. He couldn’t remember the name of my younger brother. I felt bad and reminded him. He let out a few tears and he lifted his fingers to his mouth, kissed them and reached out to give the kiss to me. “It’s okay, honey,” he said. “It’s okay.” I pressed his hand to my cheek and kissed it. I told him I loved him again and left the room.

As I was walking down the stairs, I knew there was no way I could leave. I told my uncle that I was going to stay until the end. My father had said he was ready to die. We needed to end his suffering. So how did this work?

My uncle had hired a hospice agency to make daily housecalls. The nurse would be there at 6 p.m. We figured we would bribe her to help us end his life. After seeing him I knew it was the only option. He was taking morphine and a fentanyl patch for pain, and Ativan for anxiety. I presumed that if he overdosed, he would be blissfully unaware of his heart stopping.

The hospice nurse had a different idea. She suggested continuing to give my father small doses of morphine until he passed on his own, perhaps in three days.

I was not going to leave my father lying in a bed waiting days to die. Desperate, my uncle offered her $1,000 to tell us what would stop his heart. The nurse, afraid of taking a bribe and losing her job, told us that we could give him a morphine dose every half hour instead of every hour. So we did that.

I always thought morphine was given through an IV in your arm, like you see in movies. The liquid morphine we had came in a square plastic bottle with a twist cap that reminded me of the Bubble Jug powdered gum we used to chew as kids. The instructions were to fill syringes and empty them into his mouth, toward the back of his throat. He moaned and cried as we did. I’d never seen my father cry. The brain tumor made him delusional. He mumbled about cranes at the port and weight loads, presumably from when he used to help his father at the shipyard as a teenager. My uncle told me my father had nightmares on morphine while in the hospital. He dreamt that he died and we buried him alive. He made my uncle promise not to let that happen to him.

He really was gone inside that body I didn’t recognize. It felt like a knife in my chest that I didn’t know how to help him. I was terrified he was suffering and unable to communicate. The morphine put him into a waking sleep. He was laid back with his mouth open and his half-closed eyes searching slowly and aimlessly around the room. When he focused on me, I could tell that he knew who I was. I locked eyes and told him that it was okay for him to go, that he didn’t have to keep fighting and that I wouldn’t be mad at him if he gave up.

It’s impossible to describe what it feels like, to want a person you love more than anything in the world to die.

I couldn’t take any more. We came up with a plan, my uncle and me. We would give him everything at once: the morphine, the Ativan and the fentanyl patch that was supposed to be delivered soon. My uncle crushed up anti-nausea medicine, mixed it with water, and put it into a syringe. We gave him that and a double dose of morphine.

We aren’t doctors. We didn’t know what to do. We waited on the fentanyl patch we thought would put him over.

Hours passed. No patch. We called and called. Finally, someone told us it was on the way. When the delivery came, there was no patch, just more Ativan. We called again and were told they’d made a mistake, we couldn’t get the patch until tomorrow. We needed a new plan. So we googled: How much morphine will kill someone? Turns out it depends on various factors. I was afraid my dad would vomit the morphine and we would have none until the nurse brought more the next evening. We decided to keep up the double doses and Ativan: from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., each half-hour. I held his hand and felt his pulse, hoping it would fade. His shallow breathing would stop altogether until he took a huge gasp of air. I hoped he wasn’t in pain.

For 12 hours, I tried to kill my father. Every time I gave him more morphine I hoped it would be the last. I could see the whites of his eyes roll back. His mouth hung open. When he took a large breath, his throat gurgled. I would never wish such grief or agony on anyone.

I began to have a panic attack. I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t catch my breath, felt like the world was ending. I grabbed Xanax from my purse and took one. (I’m prescribed a low dose for anxiety while flying.) My uncle had the idea: “We should give him those.” Yes. How many? Ten to be safe? We agreed. In the kitchen, my uncle crushed the Xanax, added water and filled one of the syringes. I made a syringe of morphine. We brought them upstairs. I held up my father's head as we gave him the liquids. I poured a sip of water into his mouth. Then I laid his head back down and sat on the chair beside the bed.

It happened fast. I held my father's left hand in my left hand and felt his pulse with my right. His heart beat slower and slower. His breathing softened. I knew he was going to die. I reached my right hand out to touch his face and said, “I love you.”

Then he was gone. I was relieved and devastated. I lay next to him for hours. I cried on his shoulder, held his hand, and closed his eyes when they opened. I told him everything I couldn’t say when he was alive. Then I watched two strangers take his body away in a bag.

This was not the way my father wanted to die. This is not the way anyone should have to die. With no help from doctors, hospice or anyone, my uncle and I were left on our own to end his suffering. Because euthanasia is not legal in Pennsylvania, my father and our family were subjected to insurmountable grief, grief that I live with every single day of my life.

Euthanasia is legal in only nine places in the United States: Washington D.C., California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii and Washington State. I hope no one has to know the excruciating pain of watching a loved one suffer needlessly. I know that many do and I hope that in the future this will not be a reality many are forced to face. The optimistic thing I can leave you with: These are only laws. And laws can always be changed.

Long Reads

When Doctors and Lawmakers Failed Us, My Family Had to End My Father's Life

Drugs & Alcohol

Up, up and away! Time to get out of the house with The Doe.

Travel

Stories that can only be told from the land of the free, home of the brave.

American Stories

LGBTQ Voices

Earth Day or any day, let's celebrate our planet. 

Mother Earth

The Doe celebrates its authors this Black History Month.

Black Voices

Extra, extra, read all about it! The news-media industry has shifted dramatically over the last decade—heck, within the last two years. Between print journalism, podcasting, social media and infotainment, The Doe turns over every rock in this evolving ecosystem.

Media

Stories of starting over and finding the fresh.

New Beginnings

The ol' nine to five has changed quite a bit in the past couple of years, from working remotely to, well, not working at all. This month we take a look at how cash still does rule in our capitalist society and what the future of business and money might just look like.

Money

Lord help us: They say it's not polite to talk about religion or politics, but—hey—we've already talked politics, haven't we? Prayer's up.

Religion

Sri Lanka is facing the worst political and economic crisis in its near history. As citizens bravely suffer on many fronts and confront corruption together, the people have come together like never before. Every day, we see a million small acts of kindness as the entire country helps each other. Gathering funds and collecting supplies is my job, but even I am helped every day.

For the past few months, we have been facing shortages of almost all essentials, including fuel, gas and even power. As millions give up on the idea of three meals a day and families spend half their days in queues for all these essentials, suffering and pain are a common map across all faces on the roads. 

Amidst all of this are the people’s protests and the protest sites—entire villages built to sustain protests 24/7—across the country, calling for and successfully garnering the resignation of the president and an end to corrupt rule. Even protesting comes with many difficulties, as travel is difficult, and many who stay at the sites permanently or semi-permanently give up their livelihoods to do so. The sites operate on generous donations. 

I happen to live relatively close to one of the major protest sites, and my frequent visits led to many kind people reaching out to me with offers for donations. All I had to do was visit the sites and post a list of requirements on my social media; they would be reshared with blinding speed, and many people within Colombo would either send supplies or cash donations. Sri Lankans living abroad, and even donors of other nationalities, would send in cash donations, as well.

The first week, two of my friends and I, who were pooling donated funds, were amazed at the amount we had managed to collect between the three of us. Even in ordinary circumstances, the sum would be a huge amount; in difficult circumstances, with sky-high inflation and the donors’ own difficulties, the same sum meant the world. And we were one group out of many.

If that gesture wasn’t enough to melt our hearts, the next couple of weeks made it clear how the country and its people were surviving: with a glue of kindness holding everyone together. It became commonplace for us to wander into supermarkets and clear out their beverage aisle and pharmacy, among others. Not only was this well-received, everyone knew what we were buying for. Passersby helped us carry bags; shop owners gave certain items for free; pharmacists went out of their way to dig up stocks of essential medicines. Even when we were at the cashier with three trolleys full of supplies, not a single person grumbled. 

While there, we observed people rush for the fresh produce sections, vegetables being scarce and curfews being imposed every other day. Despite the desperation, there was no fighting, no pushing, no jostling. There were more please’s and thank-you's than I had ever heard in a supermarket in my life. 

As we came outside and found ourselves a trishaw (a rare one with enough fuel to make the trip), the driver accommodated us, our multiple stops and many bags with a gentle smile. On the road, impatient honking was at a minimum. We saw people distributing snacks and drinks to people who had spent hours in the fuel and gas queues, some who could afford it by ordering Uber Eats right to the fuel queue and sharing with their fellow queue-goers. 

My friends told me about how they now carry more spare change in their wallets to tip their trishaw drivers. As we got off our trishaw and tipped the driver, despite having come from a 12-hour fuel queue, he insisted on waiting until we, three girls, had carried the bags to the protest tents safely. Just the week before, another of my friends had been dropped part way home after work by a trishaw running out of fuel, with apologies because the driver “felt bad about not dropping a girl all the way home when it’s getting dark.”

In the virtual world, social media is booming with protest plans, requests for aid and multiple community-based initiatives. Mutual friends going abroad post their flight dates so that those facing difficulties procuring medicine can reach out. Fundraisers are set up for the international community to aid the local communities. Even pets have not been left behind, with many messages on adopting kittens and puppies circulating. 

The understanding of each other’s suffering is so much so that when a local business owner tweeted about her bakery being robbed, she only said she hoped the desperate individuals who robbed the place would be able to survive longer. “At this point, I’m not even mad at whoever did this. I understand the desperation of the people in this country. Let’s all tread carefully,” her tweet read. Another instance when a person tried to run off with groceries he couldn’t afford was resolved by other shoppers around him pitching in to pay his bill. 

Despite all the challenges, conflicts and attempts to divide us and silence our voices, Sri Lanka’s people remain tall and strong, holding each other up with the strength of the compassion between us. 

Humanity’s capacity for understanding truly showcases itself amidst deep suffering.

Amidst Sri Lanka's Economic Crisis, the People Are Coming Together

From a very young age, I've based my behavior on what I thought would bring me love. I sought love from parents, teachers, peers and partners by being a “good boy.” This “good boy” was respectful, didn't abuse drugs or alcohol, never fought verbally or physically and tried to always treat others with respect. I constantly strove for approval, inclusion, appreciation and love. 

As I developed this “good boy” character, I learned to be curious about people, to find out how to make them laugh and smile along with me and to explore unique ways of getting to know them. I also learned how to make my parents and teachers proud by doing homework and housework, getting good grades and excelling in my extracurricular activities. 

While I didn’t realize the trappings of white, cis, male heteronormativity at the time, I would eventually learn how these parts of my identity, along with my upper-middle-class upbringing, contributed to what made me a “good boy” in the eyes of many, far beyond my personality and behavior. On the flip side, I learned that my sexual desires, as they began to overtake my body and attention, were not part of the equation that made up my “good boy” persona.

Recently, I’ve begun to understand the person I have been my entire life was a person who bypassed his own needs and desires, sexually and otherwise, in service to others. I never learned how to check-in and understand what I truly wanted and needed, or if I did have needs and desires, I often felt ashamed or selfish asking for them. All I knew how to do was get others to like me and appreciate me by bending over backward to like and appreciate them first. 

I had no way of knowing how to manage my sexual desires in communication with others, and I was explicitly socialized to believe that my sexual nature was something to keep to myself. I remember my parents teaching me at an early age (quite appropriately) that my private parts, and anything to do with them, were explicitly private. But when I was caught in the bathroom with my mom’s Victoria’s Secret catalog and she asked, “What is this doing here?” I felt deeply ashamed and had no answer. 

Now, I’m in my late 30s, recently married and about to have a kid. As I begin to uncover the truth behind always being a “good boy” and recognize the unspoken desires I’ve always had, I'm realizing I'm not who I thought I was. I’m learning that I still make decisions based on what my parents would approve of, my partner’s needs or getting love from people I admire. 

I find this showing up in the simple daily questions of what I want for dinner or what I do for work. My wife inquires, and I almost always defer back to her. “What are you in the mood for?” I ask. In explaining my work, I find ways to identify as an entrepreneur, a designer, an artist, depending on who I’m speaking to, always thinking about how I can explain it to parents and friends in a way that they will find admirable. 

I’m also learning how to slowly break free from this cycle of thinking that has hijacked my awareness and true identity. With help from therapy and my wife, I’m realizing that I’ve muted myself for most of my life and I need to take time to feel into my body and determine what I actually want. Slowly, I’m learning to voice what I need and want. 

As millennials, we have grown up through an explosion of identity politics. The way we define our race, beliefs, sexuality and gender are often as important, if not more important, in society than how we speak about our careers and passions. As early as first grade, I learned that I had lots of privilege as a white, upper-middle-class “good boy.” I experienced the differences in how my family lived and some of my classmates with different identities and privileges. 

Over time, I learned that my privileges informed how I behaved. I learned to mute myself so as not to stand out, and I learned that my identities weren’t necessarily cool in the circles where I wanted to be accepted. 

The cool kids, especially in middle school, rode skateboards and bikes all over the city; they lived in modest houses and apartments, some in the projects; and they watched The Simpsons every night. For a while, I felt left out. I didn’t watch the right TV shows or have the balance to stay on a skateboard, and I didn’t have the freedom from my parents to roam free all day after school. But after spending some time listening and cajoling my parents to loosen up, I began joining my classmates in the Simpsons talk and on the skateboards and got comfortable spending time in their homes.

I felt more accepted for a while, and my self-esteem began to grow as I got better at skateboarding and more fluent in cool culture, but eventually, what was cool changed as middle school turned into high school. I could no longer hack it with just my activities and attention; now my race and privilege set me apart from the pack, and it was hard to overcome those differences that became more vast as we grew older by watching the right TV shows. I also gravitated toward new friends who were more like me in terms of privilege and felt more accepting of who I was.

I remember being frustrated as an adolescent into young adulthood as I grappled with my label as a “nice guy” amongst women I desired. I didn’t want to be mean or selfish or disrespectful to anyone, but I did want the respect and admiration many of those not nice guys got, especially from our female peers. Because the “good boy” knew how to make friends, I found many crushes led to friendships. Looking back now, I realize that “good boy” really badly wanted more than just friendship. He wanted to explore his sexual nature with others. 

Even in college, it was challenging for me to comfortably share my desires for women I was attracted to and to fully express my sexual fantasies. I felt like I was being bad or disrespectful by voicing or being too overt about my sexual interest in someone else. When I did find reciprocity in a romantic connection, it felt like I was being granted a pass to a forbidden land where I wasn’t supposed to go.

Lately, I’ve noticed a similar feeling of shame and silence coming up around my comfort level being a white man in a non-white world. I feel like I should mute my expression or natural desire to lead, take up space and create when I carry the privileges of cis, white patriarchy. The thing is, like my sexual fervor, I do want to take up space and share myself with the world in my fullest expression without shame or self-suppression. I want to expand my expression, make bigger, bolder art, dress in wilder, more colorful ways, say provocative things that challenge social norms. I want to live fully without restraint!

Looking back on how I was raised and the culture that taught me how to be a “good boy,” I am thankful for many of the skills and sensitivities that got me here. Now I seek to unlearn some of the conditioning that leads me to neglect my own needs and desires for the sake of everyone else. I am ready to meet my “bad boy,” the one who knows when and how to prioritize his needs, the one who isn’t afraid to say what he thinks or engage in conflict that serves his growth. 

I know that my friends and family can love this boy too. Those who know me best have been waiting for him to arrive for a long time.

Mental Health

I've Always Been a 'Good Boy': It's Not True

I've been a volunteer at a harm reduction group in New York City for about four years now. I do a bunch of different stuff. Usually, when I'm there, I'm running the syringe exchange. 

One day a week, I go out to distribute syringes, test kits and pipes, as well as food and clothing, hygiene supplies and so forth. We also do Narcan training, including ones where we set up at shows and events. One of the cool things we're going to do soon is to actually do in-person drug testing to let you know you really do have cocaine or ketamine and not something else, like fentanyl. That's something New York desperately needs and that they’ve had in certain parts of Europe for years.

There are a lot of people out on the street. They might be coming out of prison. Maybe they never really did dope before but they started in prison a little bit, and then they get out and they have a habit. But they don't really want that to be their life or have this habit define them. A lot of times, somebody comes out of prison, or they're temporarily unhoused, and there will be a six-month period that they'll be using and on the street and they don't have access to supplies. And in that six months, a lot of bad stuff can happen. They could contract something from sharing needles. They could have a wound become infected; they could lose a limb. That six months of someone being down and out—or two years, or however long it is—shouldn't define the entire rest of their lives. They shouldn’t end up with an easily preventable disease or a wound that would be easy to keep clean if they just had basic access to fresh water. That shouldn’t be the end for them. 

So by providing very simple supplies like this to people, it gives them a chance to not just reduce the harm that they might do themselves or that the environment does to them—it also buys people time. If they want to get clean, you can reduce the risk so that they just have a better shot. But it also doesn't matter if people get clean or not. If they don't, they should at least be able to have safe access to supplies and not have to consume things in the most miserable way possible. I'm not judgmental. I don't give a fuck. What people use or how they use it has nothing to do with me. At least here, you should feel comfortable. The people who come here, when they leave, they have to go through the rest of their lives where things aren’t so comfortable.

Dope is one of the hardest things I can think of for humans to deal with. When opium was discovered, people thought it was a test from God, this wonderful thing that allows us to do crazy surgeries, but it's also such a vicious drug. It feels like it was literally put on the planet to test us. And so it's incredibly hard to get off of or deal with your life. That takes time, and it’s not as simple as people think it is. 

People think that you can go to your insurance company and they’ll take care of it. But usually, the most that they'll pay for is maybe six weeks in rehab, and that's just not enough time for people to kick these habits. And they see overdoses as an event, like a car accident or something that you just deal with and move on. But that’s not how car accidents work. You might be dealing with injuries your entire life from one. Overdoses are the same way. 

Our health system isn’t set up to provide the kind of care that addiction and its effects require. They’re the ones who literally fucking dumped OxyContin on everybody and made so much fucking money doing it. It's such a joke. It's infuriating. But now a lot of the country understands that. So harm reduction is a way to add to a whole holistic plan for people to live better and deal with these types of things.

Some people, when they hear about harm reduction, they’re like, “Holy shit, that really makes sense.” And then some people just can't make sense of it. Even most people in my family don't know that I do this work, or if they do, they don't really understand it, even though there have been many people in my family who have died of overdoses or are still using. It’s a mental block. They'll just be like, “Wait, did you say you give out crack pipes? Wouldn't that make people do it more?” It's a very deep-seated thing. But that’s not how it works, and there's a lot of data to back that up. 

Harm reduction helps a lot of other people besides the person using drugs. Especially with syringe exchanges. People complain that the city is out of control, that there are syringes everywhere. And I’m like, “That's because you fucking made the city take away the bins that we had to collect syringes—where you think they're gonna go?” There are solutions to this, but people don't want to look at the one box. "I don't want children in the neighborhood looking at syringes and shit. They're dangerous!"

Crack is interesting because people just think it's the scariest, craziest thing in the world, like people murder people on it or something—but it's not. It’s a boogeyman drug, but it's super common. Tons of people do it. And we've been dealing with it since the ’80s. 

The main problem with crack pipes is that hepatitis C is really easy to transmit with them. We also give out these things like crack condoms so users don’t burn themselves smoking it, which can also transmit infections. If you smoke crack, you’re going to find a way to do it. You might as well be able to do it cleanly. 

I had the idea with our old coordinator at the harm reduction center to start giving out crack pipes and meth pipes. I put together a fundraiser for that, and we bought the first ones and started to give them out. That went really well. The health department actually heard about it, and they were like, “That's great, we want to fund it.”  We were like, “Holy shit, we're actually going to get funding for this and at a high level.” But before I even got to really process it, everybody on social media started saying, “Biden’s giving out crack pipes,” and the funding never came through. It was frustrating. 

People think ideas like this are crazy because that’s what they see on Law & Order. They can't even begin to process how good that is for people and how good a small change like that can change people's minds about everything. If you can get the federal government to give you money to take care of people who are considered the lowest common denominator, that's a great opportunity to change people's minds about how we treat each other in general. 

But if the federal government doesn't fund that shit, we'll keep doing it no matter what. That's one of the reasons I like harm reduction so much because we take care of each other in all these ways. If just a little bit more of the population did stuff like this, it would make a huge difference. The more community you have, the safer shit is in general, all the way across the board. And that’s how you make a better world. 

I grew up in the Bible Belt. I realized there's a pattern with all the people I grew up with, where the way we would rebel against what we were surrounded by was to get really fucked up. You weren't supposed to drink or smoke or do drugs, so everyone there who didn’t fit into that mold just got really fucked up. I lost people to drugs growing up: my family, a lot of friends. My first reaction to it was that I was just really mad. I hated some of these dealers that I knew. There were times when I was like, “I’m straight up going to murder this motherfucker for giving shit to people I knew.” Then, it clicked, and I was just like, “Holy shit, this is exactly what the people in control want: If you don't fall into line with them, then you kill yourself with fucking drugs.”

Then I moved to the Pacific Northwest and came across syringe exchanges. I'd heard about it when I was a kid—through the punk community—but I’d never really connected with it. I decided I'm not really mad at any of these dealers or anybody. It is what it is. The problem is the war on drugs and the state.

The one way I can actually fight that is to do harm reduction and do it well, and keep these people alive because that's what the people in power really don’t want to see. The worst thing for them is for these people to be kept alive. I wish we could have done more of this shit earlier. I often think about all the people we lost from the late ’60s through the ’90s, how different our cities could be because so many really cool, creative, smart and radical people were wiped out, whether it's from street violence or drugs or AIDS. It’s a radical act, just keeping people alive so that they can be here to fight. I want people to be sober if they want to be and to be happy and healthy but not because of morality. I just want them to be happy and be a problem for the state. 

We need safer injection sites and a safe drug supply. But also, so much money needs to be put into the way pain is treated because, right now, it’s fucked. There needs to be a full staff of people working with a patient and a whole program for it so that someone isn't just pushed in and out of pill mills. There should be follow-ups and inpatient and outpatient care so people don’t even get into street drugs in the first place. It’s really hard to imagine because, in order for that to change, you need to get rid of insurance companies and restructure the entire medical system. Give me a big enough check and I'll do that.

Justice

I Hand Out Free Crack Pipes to Save Lives

The strangest thing about living in New York City is the frequency with which you see people suffering in public. There's nothing like walking out of a coffee shop where a small cappuccino with regular milk costs $7 and coming cheek to cheek with someone defecating in the street between parked cars because the restrooms in this city are for customers only. It's not a rare occurrence— sidewalks and subway stations are littered with turds that are too large to have come from any dog. Pay special attention to where you step during sandal weather. 

A few months ago, I was on the J train, coming home from drinks at a friend’s apartment in the Financial District. I got on the train and had the car completely to myself. Typically, this would be a nightmare scenario for me—one is the loneliest and most vulnerable number, especially on the subway at 1 a.m. I decided to hold my breath and cross my fingers that either no one else would get on my car for the rest of the journey or that a lot of people would all get on at once. 

Instead, only one person got on at the next stop, the worst possible outcome. It was a man, maybe my age or a few years older, wearing a green puffer jacket and cargo pants. He was carrying a small backpack and, at first, he didn't see me. He looked around the car with satisfaction, but when our eyes locked, both of our faces fell. I lowered my gaze, taking in the stains on his clothing for the first time, the broken zipper on his jacket. He was wearing sandals with socks in winter. Most likely, this subway car was his bedroom for the night. 

The doors closed behind him, and he wearily grabbed the nearest subway pole for support as the train pulled off. 

“Hey,” I volunteered, “Do you want me to move to another car so you can have some privacy?”

“Oh no, don’t worry about it; I’m good.”

His curly hair wanted a wash and stood straight up from his head. He didn't have a mask on, so I could see his whole face. 

“I’m not crazy, by the way. Just homeless,” he smiled wryly, finally choosing a seat opposite me to rest on. 

“OK,” I chuckled awkwardly. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

There's something really intimate about seeing another person in deep sleep. Not just nodding off during class or a meeting but laid out flat, doing those little subconscious sleep twitches that people do when they're dreaming. It's amazing how much a grown man's hands can look like a baby's hands, balled up into fists and tucked under his chin in slumber. Except that his hands were caked in grime from days without access to running water. It's even more amazing that someone can find such deep sleep under the watch of 10 to 40 strangers while the train screeches around corners and shudders and rattles between stops. Seeing someone in deep sleep should be a privilege reserved for the people who love them, and witnessing such intimacy makes me feel shame. 

As the subway rumbles along the elevated track during rush hour, a man slips into the space between cars and relieves himself onto the sidewalk 15 feet below. Make sure to carry an umbrella.

Subway rules are similar to elevator rules. You’re intolerably close to people you don’t know (near enough to count individual eyelashes and smell their laundry detergent), so logically, we all pretend that those other people aren’t there. It’s the only way to keep things civil, until someone clears his throat, steps into the middle of the car and gets ready to ask for money. His hands are covered in small cuts halfway scabbed over. Silently, all eyes (including mine) snap to a phone, a book, a hangnail, preparing to deflect pleas for help from someone who really needs it.

“I'm gonna have to start stealing some purses, man. I asked this whole car full of people to help me, and no one's even looking at me! I'm gonna have to stop being nice. Gonna have to take some purses. You don't have to give me money, but you do have to be a decent fucking human being! I'm gonna have to start robbing people. I'm dying of liver cancer!” 

We all stood there, tightfisted and packed in cheek to jowl as he made his appeal. There was no place to go if the purse snatching policy went into effect immediately. I hated every second. I hated myself and the $5 still sitting in my wallet as he got off the train empty handed. 

The city of New York has recently rolled out initiatives aimed at reducing the number of unhoused people taking shelter in the subway system, and I have personally observed a decrease in the number of unhoused people living on certain subway lines. The decrease is worrying to me because the city has only planned to build 500 individual housing units as a part of the effort. I imagine there are many more than 500 unhoused people in New York City. I wonder where everyone has gone. Every so often, I used to catch glimpses of green-jacket guy in subway stations around the Lower East Side. Lately, I haven't seen him.

Living Alongside Unhoused People in New York City Makes Me Feel Powerless

He was a man easily missed in a crowd. But he stood alone, outside the airport in Jaipur, India, with a gentle confidence that I would grow to trust more than instinct over the coming days. He was a stranger, but he approached us—me and my husband—at two in the morning like we had been reunited from a long time apart. 

“My name is Sunny,” he said. “The best ride in town. I’ll take you. Where do you go?” 

Without our response, he eased the backpack off my shoulder and burdened the weight onto his. 

“I’m very strong,” he said. “Don’t worry.” Then he began to walk away.  

As a stranger left with my life’s belongings, I should have worried. Yet the way Sunny moved—more sway than determination—was comforting. He led us from the airport to an abandoned parking lot. He packed us into his blue and red tuk-tuk and closed the shallow door on my side. Taking a seat at the helm, he adjusted the mirror so we had a cinematic view of his charming brown eyes and high cheekbone smile.

“Yes, yes it is,” I said, trying to focus on anything but the echo of the word "India," 3,000 miles away from my bed. There was a silver statue of a Hindu God on his dashboard and nothing else. Not even dust.

“Oh yes. My family is here,” he said. “My babies and I are always here." 

Arriving at our hostel, he handed us a piece of paper with his number. He told us to call him in the morning when we wanted to see Jaipur. No sale, no pitch, just his digits.

In part, I was sold by his smile. But in truth, it was because I liked how genuine he seemed. We called him the next day and he drove us around the Pink City. He was working, but there was a pride that beamed from him as he made stops. We would return to the tuk-tuk from a fort tour and he would be in jovial conversation with other drivers sipping chai, a smooth grin under his mustache. He anticipated our needs and eased us into the strangeness of India, taking us to clean places to eat and making recommendations. He treated us with delicacy as foreigners, but he did so without undermining his humility, greeting everyone with equal affection.

On the second day with Sunny, he invited us for dinner with his family as a celebration of the Hindu holiday. He drove us out of town, where the scenery didn’t fade in color, but in life and light. He turned off the six-lane highway and parked the tuk-tuk next to his family’s fleet of four others. A dozen kids were playing in the side street kicking a ball barefooted under an absent street lamp. A few men came to greet Sunny, including his cousin Raj. They all wanted to see who had come from beyond the neighborhood. Sunny had shown us palaces and shops to buy exotic spices, but he had shielded us from everyday life. We followed Sunny down a muddy alleyway, feeling the discomfort that came with the turn of day in an unfamiliar place.

When I entered the house behind Sunny, I didn’t cross through a door, but an open archway. I left my sandals inside by the single stove on the ground. Two women were cooking a meal of homemade chapatis and green vegetable curry under an open roof. In the house, there were three spaces divided by curtains and illuminated by a single lightbulb: a kitchen, a bedroom with a raised surface to sleep, and a matted area big enough for four adults to sit in a circle knee to knee. There was no toilet.

The air didn’t shift as I moved. India had kept its promise of relentless heat even in the setting season after dusk. But in the house, the dirt was soft and the walls were dry. We moved around the women to file into the back room. Sunny apologized for the absence of air-conditioning as he sat and leaned so the bump of his belly stressed the lower buttons of his shirt. I assured him of my comfort as the sweat beads fell from my neck. I wondered how many blue button-up shirts Sunny had or if it was the same one he had been wearing for two days. Raj came in from the alley and sat in the circle. Sunny straightened his posture and pulled out a cigarette to hand to Raj as a reflex. 

The women prepared plates, enough for four, and served them to us without a word. I hadn’t known the women were fasting for the holiday until Sunny explained they would eat at midnight. I felt the pang of hunger in my gut move to guilt for having burdened them with cooking a meal they couldn’t eat, but the energy between the walls was tender and generous. The women smiled at Sunny as they placed food on the floor and left. Between bites, Raj talked of his profession, folding over anecdotes of his abilities to speak with the Hindu Gods. Sunny was transfixed and agreed with Raj’s every word. I doubted Raj had magic powers and his stories were overzealous, but I believed in Sunny. 


I had felt at ease hearing Sunny’s soft voice assuring “no worries,” or in calling me brother. I trusted the warmth in his brown eyes as he looked to Raj with a love that could be seen even in the shadows. He had shown us his India—his family, his way of life—and spent his time trying to make our experience more than a set of sites. He had repeatedly refused gratuity, and instead insisted we join him for a meal with his family. Believing in Raj’s powers, however momentary, appeared more sincere to Sunny than any other token of thanks. So after dinner, I sat alone with Raj in the dark for a palm reading. I assured him the secrets that had arisen would be kept as a sister—not as I was, a stranger, who had missed the big red arrow toward civilization and instead followed a humble tuk-tuk driver to the outskirts of Jaipur. I was out of place amongst the air, filled with souring fruit and manure. 

Yet, this was a place where Sunny raised his kids. A place where his wife and sister would lift their veils after we left. Five of them would huddle in one bed, and turn in for some sleep before Sunny headed back out into the late hours of the night to find a fare. This was a place that Sunny called home and where he was never ashamed to call it so when we visited. A place where he offered us a meal while his family ate nothing.

It was a strange thing to leave Jaipur the next day, as though we were breaking a cycle of kindness Sunny perpetuated in every aspect of his life. While in India, I was held by skepticism, always decoding niceness from strangers. But now, a year later, I think about Sunny and his family. Every few weeks he sends a roughly written message in English over Facebook. I know he’s gone out of his way to find somewhere with Wi-Fi to send his words. I know he’s dictating the message to his son to type, as Sunny can’t read or write, in his language or mine. There’s nothing for him to gain in all this trouble of staying in touch, unless the return is simply that—to stay in touch. 

Sunny never wanted to make a sale—of himself, his ways, his culture or his beliefs. Nor did he shade others who did, something I hadn’t understood was unique to Sunny and not the traditions of India or Hinduism. His unmasked genuineness challenged my understanding of kindness as someone from America. Sunny showed me how the less you had the more you yearned to give.

I’m humbled by the misplaced letters of Sunny’s messages—notes of concern for my family during COVID—or, most recently, a picture of his newborn niece. They’re notes I would send to someone close, to people I’d known for years. I had known Sunny for a collective few hours yet our exchanges flow comfortably like friends. Whether he had known from the beginning, when he had said hello and taken my bag upon his shoulder, Sunny’s compassion and blind kindness have imparted his presence in my life, happily and forever.

A Poor Indian Man Taught Me True Generosity

I remember so clearly the day my life was going to end. I’d even contemplated how it would end. It was a mild February evening, and I was lying on my best friend’s bed with Beyoncé blasting through speakers. “How did I get here?” I asked myself. It’d started with something I’d feared the most: rejection. A heart was broken by a man saying he didn’t want to be with me anymore after I’d thrown my worth into his hands. “Why would he want to be with me? He’s going to leave,” hijacked my insecure brain throughout our relationship. My feelings felt far more deafening than the music. I sobbed. “No one needs me!” Those four words caused a gut-wrenching pain. I felt physically sick. I was broken, full of despair. My world had crumbled around me and cast the darkest shadow.

Six months earlier in August of 2018, I awoke in my old bedroom at my mom’s house, unable to sleep. Scrambled words swirled around my head at lightning speed. I’d begged, I’d pleaded, I’d come up with solutions to problems but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t good enough. “Why can’t I make a relationship last?” I said, repeatedly blaming myself. It was two days before my 32nd birthday and I had moved all my things out of the bungalow situated just ten doors away. “Are you okay?” my stepdad asked as he helped load books and clothes in boxes and carried them back to my mom’s. “No. I don’t want to have to do this.”

Like a professional actor, I portrayed a happy, carefree character on her birthday, twirling around the dance floor. Was I okay about this breakup? I swallowed my feelings and left them in the pit of my stomach. I can’t cry on the train, at work or at the shows I’m attending during London Fashion Week. Anyway, it would be pointless. I'm fine. The tears even stayed back when we said goodbye. I was fighting with my emotions and I was winning.

Until two weeks later when I found myself in the hospital, hooked up to a drip. I looked down at my body and the weight loss was too obvious. My bra cups gaped open; my tummy was internally crying and externally concave; and any makeup had run away with my tears. Filled with emotion, I felt exposed. I avoided eye contact with anyone as I was wheeled up to the gastroenterology ward after being diagnosed with a Crohn’s disease flare-up. Each morning, I feared the doctor’s daily rounds. He’d break the news that I wouldn’t be going home—that I needed to have X-rays, a colonoscopy, a medication dose increase. By the afternoon, my heart would race, each breath feeling accelerated. I’d struggle to concentrate watching an episode of TV, reading the books and magazines stacked beside me, or even holding a conversation. “Make it stop,” I’d plead to myself, closing my eyes and desperately wanting to wake up from this nightmare.

Rather than focusing on getting better, my eyes were locked on the door. He’ll come to visit soon, rescue me, tell me I’ll be okay. I soon learned that no one can save you but yourself—and certainly not Prince Charming. But it felt like repeated stabs to the heart. Returning home and shutting the door behind me, I fell to the floor, curled into the fetal position and let out an unrecognizable sound before emptying a large bag of prescribed pills on the floor. I tried to regain some normalcy by taking walks and wearing an oversized hoodie like body armor. Going to dinner with friends left me doubled over in pain. My body shook with despair when I couldn’t find oil or avocados at the supermarket. I avoided both the bungalow and his white van like the plague, only to have them torment my thoughts.

Unable to think straight, I made a drastic decision and changed jobs. I started at the end of November, and regarded it as my dream position: writing for a magazine, attending private events, producing trend pages and brand insights. On Sundays, however, I felt restless about the upcoming week. Going to work turned into the most difficult thing to accomplish. My body trembled with fear if my manager walked near me or called me into her office. Every day she’d threaten my job and pick apart everything I’d written. “They’re not good enough,” she’d say. “These will never appear on Google. You need to sort these articles out in your own time.” She knew I was weak physically and mentally, and chose to prey on my vulnerabilities. At the same time, I had an estate agent telling me that a county court judgment would be put against my name if rent wasn’t paid at the bungalow I had shared with my ex. 

My mum begged me to quit my job as I typed on my laptop, wiping my face dry until bedtime. Quitting felt foreign to me. My tummy twisted into tight knots. Panic coursed through my body at the thought of another hospital stay. It was too much to bear, so in February of 2019, I handed in my notice. On my final day, everyone was called into a meeting. Our manager started talking about what she accepts from her staff. Then her voice grew louder as she gave the exact details about how terrible I was at my job. Everyone fell silent. Humiliation engulfed me. Any energy to argue was gone, so I just stared vacantly. I couldn’t write, she said, and I believed her. My career was the last bit of rope I was holding onto. It’d gotten me through so much of life’s tribulations. Now, I felt worthless.

After admitting out loud to my best friend that I felt suicidal, I went out with another friend to abuse myself further; binge-drinking until 4 a.m., throwing up and eating takeout at my friend’s house the next day. I knew if I didn’t go out, I would have died that night. Loneliness swept over me as I heard her FaceTime with her husband and children. So, I left saying goodbye. Was I going to see her again? If I took enough pills, I wouldn’t. 

When I opened up, I was always unable to utter the words, “I want to die.” I was too weak to handle it and I was too paranoid around doctors that they’d think I was crazy and lock me up. I refused pills but accepted the phone number for counseling. I’d taken steps in admitting I couldn’t go on, but now what? I had to help myself. I knew I couldn’t permit someone outside of myself to dictate whether I lived or not. I had to start climbing out of the black hole I’d stayed in for the past six months.

I started following life coaches on social media and listening to podcasts. I continued to write and document my hospital stay on a blog to raise awareness of Crohn’s disease and chronic conditions. I jotted feelings into a diary, a place where I spoke freely and honestly. Exercise and nature turned into therapy for my mind. Every walk, run or climb made me feel a bit stronger. Although I felt like a failure when back pain prevented me from summiting a few mountains, by August, I stumbled across a half-marathon finish line, collapsed on the wet grass and was overcome with emotion. I realized I hadn’t let any negativity dominate my thoughts.

I remembered what my ambitions and goals were and what I alone wanted. I started freelancing again and volunteered for the local Crohn’s and colitis charity. After building up enough courage, I took my old manager to court and won back the paychecks she owed me. There were both good and bad days—sometimes, more bad—but slight defeat failed to destroy me. Soon, I started to recognize and applaud the woman staring back at me in the mirror. The heroine of her own story was good enough to live.

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