STABILISE

Disclaimer: It is important to note that STABILISE is a work in progress operated by an educated woman with lived experience with bipolar disorder and computer scientists interested in improving access to practical knowledge, medical professionals, and crisis responders. We are building a mobile application that is designed to track moods and analyse text so help can be provided sooner. For medical advice, please consult your family doctor or a trusted health care practitioner. If you believe you are in need of immediate medical assistance and live in North America, call 911. Otherwise, please reach out to the Lifeline at 988 (by phone or text).

Tag: Grief

  • On Grief and Grieving

    On Grief and Grieving

    I began reading The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor who writes,

    “Grieving, or learning to live a meaningful life without our loved one, is ultimately a type of learning. Because learning is something we do our whole lives, seeing grieving as a type of learning may make it feel more familiar and understandable and give us the patience to allow this remarkable process time to unfold.”

    She makes a distinction between grief and grieving. Grief is the pain of memory, the flash of insight that our loved one has passed. Grieving is the process of learning how to live with the loss of our loved one.

    It is fascinating how she compares grieving to learning because it encourages the one who experiences grief to adopt coping mechanisms that allow one to live a whole-hearted life.

    For the past week, I have been remembering how it felt to write when I was young. There was an unencumbered bliss. A significant part of that was reading books and learning how language can be used to create worlds and express ideas.

    I mention writing because it is one of my coping mechanisms, as well as a significant component of the app we are building. Today was the first day I was able to test the app. There are bugs, of course — that was to be expected.

    What I didn’t anticipate was the pervasive sense of loss. I suppose I expected building something out of nothing to feel different, like an incredible accomplishment. I have been thinking about this app for a long time. There is no doubt that it is incredible and beautiful and will be an interesting experience for its users.

    But tomorrow is the second anniversary of my mother’s passing and I wish I could tell her about the development of STABILISE and how I’m applying to grad school and I really did end up studying Levinas on a daily basis.

    It reminds me of that famous line from Into the Wild:

    “Happiness: only real when shared.”

    What happens when one of the people you want to share your life with is dead?

    Yes, I am self-pitying, but what if that is also growth? What if learning how to accept her passing is what allows me to proceed full force ahead for my own sake? What if death teaches us gratitude for the time we had, how to cope with loss, and live into our highest selves anyway?

  • On the Long Road

    Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher from the Renaissance, said,

    “To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”

    I chose Michel’s words and the picture because death has been weighing heavy on my mind. Pampas grass grew outside the townhouse I lived in with my mother right up until she passed away. There are moments when I feel her presence near, when I think communicating with her would be as simple as picking up the phone.

    I remember her daily.

    I hear her voice in my head, not as a symptom, but a painful sense of missing someone I love who is no longer here. A professor I write to every once in a while told me that it is a strangeness to lose the person who brought us into this world.

    Strange is right, hollow too.

    At root, what I’d like to tell her is about my day. At heart, I want to hear about hers. The afterlife of loss is profound. There are instances when my soul lurches and pivots and does cartwheels.

    I think about what Michel is saying, how he emphasizes the importance of accepting one’s mortality. It isn’t strictly acceptance, but a relinquishing of the fear that can help us avoid becoming subservient.

    I know that I feel subservient to my own fear of death. The unknown is terrifying with its unseen variables. However, I have noticed that my fear of death is in proportion to the excitement I feel learning how to engage with the world again.

    Everyday, I grow more confident, a skill that I have been trying to manifest since I was a kid.