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: Loss

  • 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 Pursuing Stability

    Today, I had the opportunity to get to know my supervisor better. His name is Imran Somji and he is the founder of Appanzee Inc., the app development company responsible for building STABILISE, among various others.

    We were talking about professional goals and he shared a post he had written about his own layoff story in 2022. It was an inspiring read, though slightly harrowing in the sense that being laid off is rarely conducive for producing a good feeling the moment it happens. It was Nietzsche however, who wrote, “One must have chaos to give birth to a dancing star” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra).

    Depth is often borne from hardship. There are a number of striking features about Imran’s story, which can be read here. Multiple aspects touched me, including this piece of advice:

    “…every now and then I do a deep-dive well outside of my comfort zone.”

    An integral part of being let go is the space it carves for personal growth. Being laid off, no matter how much one may have expected it, is a nudge towards the unknown.

    I remember standing at the foot of a diving board when I was young. I stood at the bottom near the ladder for quite some time. My heart was in a race against my mind. I crept up the rungs eventually, terrified when my bare feet touched the edge of the board. I walked to the front, took many deep breaths, and didn’t jump for a few minutes.

    As Imran writes,

    “Inertia and the feeling of security can hamper your creativity and potential.”

    One of the perils of remaining in a stagnant state for the sake of security is that it eliminates potential and creativity bit by bit.

    Not jumping into the water would have meant that I would never experience how it feels to dive into a pool: the breathless descent before my skin feels the crush of the pool against my skin, the scent of chlorine, the sensation of my feet hitting the bottom, the rise up.

    I would have remained suspended between pensiveness and action. A safe space, but novelty makes room for understanding that newness may be the strongest precursor for learning helpful skills and developing adaptability.

    Source: My Layoff Story by Imran Somji