The Need for Support: Part 1/6 in the Support Series

I've been thinking about this word support for a very long time. Since writing and publishing my first memoir in the spring of 2019, I realized that was exactly what my family and I were all lacking.

Fast forward through a pandemic, my divorce from my first husband of 15 years, changing homes multiple times, changing my career, and getting married again to a totally different kind of human, I see what support can be, what it isn't, why we sometimes have it, why we don't, and why sometimes we might think it's there when actually it's not.

Support is so nuanced, and that is why, for the past two years, I've been outlining and writing a book all about it. Through my experiences, I have seen what it is and what it isn't. Why we can and can not give it. Why we can and can not receive it.

Would you like to read a book like that?

This year, I had the goal to write that book. Get it all out on paper and see where I can take it. Immediately, I started second-guessing myself. I even crossed off my "write the book" on my New Year's resolution bingo card. I then allowed myself to be in the midst of my midlife crisis because it was all too overwhelming. I truly didn't think I had the emotional strength to get through it.

Despite that, I continued to try to build a community. I created new pages on Instagram and Threads. I created a new Substack account to post my thoughts and see what kind of community was over there. Every time I tried to put myself out there, I came back feeling even more lost and confused. I have tried to find where I fit and felt like I have been failing.

In my down moments, I've told myself:

"No one wants to hear my words."

"No one wants community anymore."

"Maybe the world has been through too much."

"Maybe I should try to just have my career, come home, eat dinner, read a book or watch a show, and go to bed. Rinse and repeat."

I've spent hours, days, weeks, and months talking to my husband about all of this. I've shed tears about it. I've wondered if my path should be going back to school to get my degree, which I still don't have.

"Am I wasting my time trying to write books?"

I don't know. We only get this one life, and because of how much death I've witnessed, I kind of think the college degree doesn't matter right now.

I kind of think my message on support matters more.

"But would anyone take me seriously?"

The clarity of it all finally hit me the other day, in a very unexpected way.

And I'm going to give full credit to the woman who got me through my college experience and helped me step into my career as a medical assistant.

She texted me the other day, completely out of the blue, to ask if I would be interested in giving a presentation for the Oregon Society of Medical Assistants. She told me I could incorporate something I'm passionate about, and immediately I thought: support.

I said yes, and I'll be working on that presentation for the next few weeks until the event, and I'm pretty excited. More than being excited for this specific event, though, it caused a significant shift in how I've been processing everything recently.

I've been seeing my career as a medical assistant and my path towards being an author again as two very separate things. Turns out, they can be and are very intertwined.

Of course they are. I work in healthcare! Has my entire story not been absolutely submerged in the settings of healthcare?

It has, in all the ways, that's why I became a medical assistant in the first place.

Now that it's almost October, I have a new drive to get this all going.

And I want to be a bit more vulnerable with you all.

I've been quite sick of life for a very long time, and it doesn't take much to get me to fall into despair and want to end it all.

I don't like these parts of myself that feel so fragile. I don't want to share them because I fear that everyone is sick of me.

What hasn't killed me has most definitely not made me stronger.

What has made me stronger are the good people in my life who are willing and able to support me, love me, hold me when I cry, and give me space to feel seen, heard, and validated.

It has been tools that I lean on to keep my mind from spiraling.

It has been my communities that include me in things, even when they don't truly grasp how important it is for me to feel included.

Support has been very present in both intentional and passive ways.

And I've had to support myself as well, recognizing when self-care is necessary, reaching out for support, or leaning on the tools I've been given.

Support is the reason I'm still here.

I remember getting that question after writing my first book, the one that went like this:

"What makes you different?"

And what they usually meant when they asked me was "why didn't you become addicted and follow down the same path your family did?"

And truly, I didn't have the answer.

Why didn't I?

I have that answer now, though, and it is support. I've been given a type of support from both the outside world and from within myself, which has made all the difference in my life vs. what my family went through before they died.

Discovering that answer has been quite a journey.

I thought I had discovered it when I hit publish on that first book and wrote about the cycle of support in that last chapter.

I thought I had discovered it when I wrote my second book and included a built-in support guide to help teenagers begin building their support network.

I realized I was wrong about support when the pandemic hit. I lost everything, and the world became isolated.

From there, I had to look at this word and really pick it apart.

I've had to learn what it means to me and everyone around me, and I'm still learning.

And from here, I want to create and build something that fully encapsulates all of that!

I have many ideas to help others begin to think about what support does and does not look like.

I want to empower you.

I want for you to feel seen, heard, and validated.

I want you to be able to support those around you, because you yourself have the support you need to do so.

This post is part of a six-week series as I build and unfold what I'm working on.

I can't wait to share everything with you.

Support is so necessary in all our lives, and one thing I do know for absolute certainty is that you deserve to be supported. It's not something you need to earn; it's something you need to be given.

It won't be that easy, but that's why I'm building all that I'm building.

Stay tuned...

Next week, I'll be back talking about how my first two memoirs shaped my ideas on support and helped me lay the groundwork for all that comes next.