Me Before You- Do Implicit Messages Matter?

If you haven’t yet read this book or watched the movie, I should warn you that this will have spoilers. But also, I’m going to recommend that you skip watching it (I honestly can’t remember the last time I actively recommended that people avoid a movie I had seen, this is so weird) so just accept the spoilers, read this post, and move on with your life without subjecting yourself to the movie.

I was expecting a tragic love story. I had watched the trailers, and I was prepared to cry (although to be totally fair, I hadn't actually read the book so I had only vague ideas about the ending and was thus not totally prepared) The movie did produce many tears, but they were unexpectedly angry tears. This was initially because I was angry and frustrated at Will Traynor deciding to end his life, upset at what seemed like a selfish decision that if he couldn’t have life on his terms, he wouldn’t live at all. I started my cry hurt by the devastating choice a fictional character was making, but I quickly moved on to being angry about the people selling me this story.

I wanted a love story and what I got instead was a depressed man insisting on his own autonomy while simultaneously attempting to convince a woman that the choices she is making about her life are a waste of her potential and that she needs to live differently. Her feelings grow from “I hate this job and I don’t want you to die” to “I guess I have feelings for you and I still don’t want you to die.” Meanwhile, both of them manipulate and keep things from each other. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is Hollywood and I don’t expect too much in terms of a love story, but the climax of their "romance" seemed to be that, as Samuel James wrote, “Louisa finally receives his affection, but his true love remains his life before the accident.” This movie has less to say about love and more to say about disability, human value, and what makes life meaningful, and these messages are where things get really disturbing.

Essentially, the message this movie sends is “If you are disabled in some way that you feel prevents you from living life the way you want to, death is a totally acceptable option. And if you truly love someone and they want to die, you will accept their choice and be there for them in the way that they want you to be.” Someone else curtly summed it up as "Live boldly... unless you are in a wheelchair".

“I can’t live the life I want so I should die” is simply, deeply, untrue. And before you tell me that it's okay for the movie to make that truth claim, or not okay for me to reject it because 'some people in his situation actually feel that way'... let's address that.

First of all, Will is a fictional character created by an able-bodied woman who knew nothing about quadriplegia prior to writing this book, and who somehow managed to avoid talking to a single person with quadriplegia during the course of her extensive medical research on the topic. Will represents less an actual person experiencing a life changing disability than he represents able-bodied people's perceptions of disability. As many disabled people have already expressed with much more eloquence and authority than I have, this movie perpetuates harmful stereotypes about disability while eliminating realistic pictures of what daily life with disability looks like (one can only assume because the makers find the realities of disability distasteful, shameful, or perhaps just unromantic). Secondly, regarding the 'someone somewhere actually feels that way' sentiment...  if I actually came across someone with a spinal cord injury that resulted in quadriplegia who felt hopeless and depressed and wanted to die, I would like to think that I could compassionately respond to them in a way that validates their experience and emotions without agreeing with them that they should die.

As I have said, disability activists have pretty clearly expressed the various problems with this story and the way that it was told, both from a community perspective as well as their own experiences. But I haven't heard voices speaking up on behalf of those who are depressed and suicidal, and so I would like to make one additional point.

For more than a decade now, we have been sending able-bodied and exceptionally fit men and women in the prime of their lives to go fight wars for our country. And many of them have come home with life-altering injuries. They have demonstrated totally understandable difficulties adjusting to civilian life post-injury, not the least of which because they devoted years to a mission that they are no longer a part of. That loss of purpose, as well as the daily realities of life with a disability, takes a heavy emotional toll, and is a contributing factor to the high rate of veteran suicide. What is that rate, you wonder? 22 people. Every. Day.

Maybe I am biased. Perhaps I am overly sensitive because of the work that I do, but in our current climate, do we really need the implicit messages in Me Before You? Are they what we should be telling people struggling with depression and suicide? Are they what we should be telling their families and friends?

Can we agree that anyone taking their own life is tragic? Because I think it is possible, if we don't pay attention to the messages filtering through our experiences, to become nonchalant and lackadaisical about this truth. And I think it is possible, if we aren't careful about the messages we are tacitly supporting, that real harm might be done in the lives of real people.  Either we decide, as a community, that life is valuable, so we support each other and fight for each other and help others find meaning and purpose in life, or... we decide its a grey area and don't fight and people die.

Perhaps you think this is over dramatic. I can accept that, and I will simply say, just in case the messages that we send matter: Every person is valuable, regardless of ability or disability. Every life has meaning, even in the midst of difficulty. Everyone should live boldly. Everyone should live.

Blog-iomics and Life Updates

Blogging is a tricky mix of "this is my diary" and "this is NOT my diary." Too many opinions with not enough real life gets preachy and boring. Ain't nobody got time for that. On the other hand, if write a stream of consciousness as it happens, you are going to (1) be overwhelmed and confused (that stuff is hard to follow) and (2) realize how screwed up I am.

It's not that I don't expect to confuse you occasionally... and if you are perceptive (or even can read) you should already know that I have issues. I would just prefer not to terrify you with too much of either one.

So I have drafts and drafts of things that I want to tell you. However, packaging these to neaten them up without making them into a lecture has bottle-necked things recently. And it's true, I have also been very low energy. Or you could just say I'm bad at blogging.

But I love reading blogs. And I was thinking about the blogs I love, realizing what a blessing my favorites are and how much these women and men sacrifice to write them... they all lead fascinating/inspiring/sacrificial/sometimes mundane/sometimes difficult lives, and they take the time to honestly write it down. How kind of them! I appreciate it so much!

My life is not so fascinating, inspiring, etc... it's often not even so difficult (although the mundane I can related to). I'm not like the people whose blogs I love the most, but I want to be more like them. So I'll just try to be honest (maybe even consistent?!?) and hopefully along the way you will see God at work. I'll tell you the things that God is stirring my heart over and maybe they will (or maybe they won't) move your heart. This seems like a terrifying risk to take but I know that rationally, it's not possible to be passionate about ALL the things all at once so it's okay if you don't care as much as I do. I'm just going to keep talking (or typing) as I stumble through life and hope that it's not a waste.

So with that resolve, here are some quick life updates and thoughts. Some of them have their own posts sitting as a messy draft that I may or may not stick cat pictures in and post at some point:

-My job is going well. That is to say, I am enjoying it today and if I don't enjoy it tomorrow, I will still be glad that I have it. The research itself waxes and wanes, so some days are more motivating than others. Also, my personality is definitely not suited to working alone with samples all day, but we probably knew that already. I have been getting some cool opportunities here, and I am starting my own project on PTSD in a military cohort soon, so that's exciting (and a bit concerning, because miRNA? that stuff is way more complicated than I was thinking...)

-I've been fatigued since October for no good reason, but it has definitely gotten better between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's possible that I have had a holiday season reprieve and this fatigue will resume, but I am hoping what I'm feeling now is because I was sick and I'm fighting off all the bugs I was exposed to on Christmas. For the record, I don't recommend donating blood on a whim the day before Christmas Eve if your blood pressure and iron are lower than usual, and then skipping dinner afterwards and not drinking enough (in my defense, I would have eaten if I hadn't gotten stuck in traffic and needed to go straight from work to rehearsal). We can add this to the list of dumb things Christiana has done that you should not do. In retrospect, I think you should probably not give blood right before Christmas anyway because of aforementioned exposure to sick people that will likely be combined with lack of sleep on Christmas eve. Personally, I will probably just not give blood in the winter... but that's because I an unreasonable about the cold.

-Christmas was lovely. I've been sick more or less since the 23rd, but Christmas was still a lovely day. My Pap was way happier than I anticipated based on Thanksgiving, Mom and I didn't set our house on fire (the shed, unfortunately, didn't fare so well but technically Mom and I didn't set that on fire either), and I got to see most of my family (although some of my cousins I wish I had more time with). Since for a while I didn't really enjoy any holidays, it's nice that seeing family can be pleasant, and it was this year :)

-Church is decent. Actually, church is good, but I'm feeling like I'm in a dry season spiritually, so I'm not enjoying church like I usually do. Or reading my bible. Or praying. Or singing. Christmas was still good, because you don't have to feel totally awesome about a true thing for that thing to still be totally awesome. Basically, I'm holding onto intellectual faith, force-feeding myself the word (excellent advice from a wise friend), and trusting that the emotions will be rekindled in my heart. It's reminded me recently of how God's love radiates like light and heat... I want that warmth but I don't create it myself. It comes from Him, just like spiritual life and growth come from Him. More on that another time...

-The cats are happy. They very much enjoyed the wadded balls of wrapping paper on Christmas morning, and at least one of them stole bows off of packages before they were unwrapped. They love the Christmas tree, but they don't actually hurt it, they just sit under it contentedly and Lady M occasionally tries to eat a jingle bell (never successfully). This week I used a hammer to put together some furniture (my wonderful mother got me a book shelf! And after putting all of the stray books on it, there is still room for more books!) and it took over an hour of both cats rolling all over and snuggling with the hammer for me to realize that I keep it in the same drawer as the cat nip. An accidental Christmas present for the kitties.

Every bow is Lady Margaret's bow

Tales From The Other Side

In a shocking (cue sarcastic voice) and very unexpected turn of events in the tale of my heart being an idol factory, it turns out that even though I now have a job, I am still a sinner. On the bright side, I am now both a sinner and a gainfully employed person, so I feel like it is a net improvement.

So first things first… long awaited positive news from the job-hunting adventure! I was offered a fellowship position in January at the National Institute of Nursing Research. And I accepted it… but paperwork happens slowly here, so I didn’t start until March. I’m working at the National Institutes of Health main campus in Bethesda, where I am doing genomics and epigenetics(!!) research for studies of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, mild Traumatic Brain Injury, and Phantom Limb Pain (mostly) . So the physical work I am doing is straight genetics, but the big picture is psychology (I get the feeling that the NINR researches whatever it feels like, which is convenient for me because… genomic psychology?!?! I’m sure it is related to nursing. Somehow. And I love it.) The PTSD and Phantom Limb studies are both in populations of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and I think the only way I could possibly be more excited about the PTSD study would be if they would let me walk across the street to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and help with the clinical phenotyping. The mTBI study is in a population of student athletes, and although I haven’t figured out how you get a concussion playing basketball (trip and hit your head? Hit another player with your head? Hit the backboard with your head? So confusing compared to the logical football/soccer/hockey concussions), the rest of the study is straightforward, as far as epigenetics goes, and should be interesting like the other two projects.

Proverb holding the fort.
If the fort was a bag.

I say “should be interesting” because I haven’t really done much yet. Thankfully it took me less than two weeks to take the safety courses I needed to take (again) in order to work in a lab with potential blood borne pathogens. Then I held the fort while my boss was out all of last week. (You do not hold down the fort. The fort is not inflatable. In this particular case, the fort is a lab with a -80°^C freezer that I am organizing within an inch of its life.) So while I told myself that I would just ‘wait until I start my new job’ to blog about it, and then told myself I would just ‘wait until I actually start working on something,’ time trickled away. Sorry, team. I am still learning that exciting is relative, and writing about real life is not going to flow like a good book.

Instead, life seems to be flowing, slowly, in circles. Like I mentioned at the beginning, it turns out that even though I now have the thing that I wanted,  didn’t have, and spent considerable energy pursuing for the past ten months, getting a job did not resolve all the struggles I had before I had a job. In fact, it was an almost laughable moment when I realized-on the day I accepted my job offer-that I had been subconsciously building up a job in my heart as the solution to all my problems and was disappointed to learn that the real thing did not live up to expectations. I did not really have more control over my life than I did before; I did not have the security that I desperately wanted. My new job was not a guarantee that I would get into the grad school of my dreams, there was no way to know for sure that working at NIH would make me happy, and this job would not secure the rest of my career and assure my success. And now that I am working, what do I struggle with on a daily basis? Yep, it's the same old stuff. Turns out I am not magically better at being content, resting in my identity in Christ, etc. now that I have a job. 

Basically, I still have to trust God’s control in my life for security. I still have to look to him rather than choosing to worry about my future. I still have to seek him for real contentment. But I also get to extract DNA while I do those things. Life is good :)

P.S. Here are some other struggles that aren't fixed by a job. I don't really mind most of them, though...

The Strength Of Men

I love that God made men. I also love that I am not one. Sometimes, I think it is easier to appreciate something from the outside, easier to recognize something that is different.

This week, I saw the movie Lone Survivor. It was excellent... difficult to watch[i], but I still loved it. For those of you who haven't seen it, I won't explain the entire plot, but will simply say that it is based on a true story of SEAL team 10 serving in Afghanistan in 2005, and that the title speaks for itself. Watching the movie was painful and involved a lot of wincing and mentally trying to keep myself together, but it also moved me deeply. And it kept me awake that night thinking.

There was a point in the movie, during which the team was literally tumbling down a mountain and I was feeling ALL the conflicting emotions, when I thought to myself, "There is something about men that I love." At the moment, I couldn't put that 'something' into words (because, really, too many feels at once), but as I thought about it later, the word that came to mind was "strength." It wasn't just the physical strength that the men displayed, but the strength of mind and character as they lived and died during their last day on this earth with courage and honor.

As I watched them, they seemed very... other. Very different from me. I could not have done what they did, and it made me appreciate that they could. And yes, I know that I have not been trained to be a Navy SEAL. But the difference seemed deeper, more qualitative. I too, have been made for war, but not for that part of war. My heart yearns to fight, but it is a fight to rebuild, to restore, to redeem, and to rescue. I want to be on the front lines of battle, but it is a different part of the battle, and fighting looks different where I want to be.

And so, as I lay awake and reflected on their fight, I rejoiced that God has equipped and prepared men to fight in some wars that I am not called to. I rejoiced that he has given them the strength they need for their battles, which frees me and inspires me to use the strength he gives me for my own battles. The strength of those men I have never met inspire me, but they are not the only ones who do so. I am inspired by men of strength who wage a Relentless Fight against pervasive sin and equip others to fight with them. I am inspired by men of courage who fight to be a father to the fatherless. I am inspired by men of honor who take a stand against sexual violence.

Although my heart is moved by the strength of all these men, they only dimly reflect the strength of one man. A man who, though innocent, was beaten until he was marred beyond human likeness. After this beating, which had killed others before him, he hauled a slab of wood on his bleeding back up a hill so that he could be nailed to it. And although he could have called down legions of warriors to help him, he allowed himself to be crucified while bearing the weight of every sin ever committed and experiencing a soul crushing separation from the person he loved most. The strength of other men inspires me, but it is the strength of this man, Jesus Christ, that empowers me.

P.S. It was an intense movie. Cats just didn't quite fit. But of course there are some pretty cool cats serving on the front lines, too. So enjoy some wartime cats.

P.P.S. In case that wasn't enough cats for you, there are also cats in the Middle East who deserve some love.

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[i] Side note for gents who want to care for the ladies in their lives... war movies like this usually leave us with deep feelings, and we have some hefty emotional processing to do even though the movie is over. As such, although watching a war movie might make you want to immediately play Call of Duty, doing that will make us want to cry. We sort of want to cry already, so its helpful if you just give us some processing time to pull ourselves together. (And this might not be true of all ladies, but its true for me and the girlfriends I've discussed this with.)

Guess What Today Is...

 Today is my Grandmother’s 72^nd birthday. In honor of that, I am going to share some things I am grateful for today that relate to my Mam-maw.

1.     Mam-maw is more pop-culture savvy than my beautiful mother. Thus, when I referenced the hump day camel to her, she laughed with me :)

2.     Both of my grandmothers had children ridiculously young (by today’s standards). Why am I grateful for this? Because I have had the blessing of knowing all of my grandparents and several of my great-grandparents. Mam-maw was a decade younger than my mother was when each had their first child, and as a result, Mam-maw was spry enough to play with me when I was growing up.

3.     Every time I think my Mam-maw is ready to depart from this life, she doesn’t. She has had medical issues since before I was born, and yet, here she is. When she lost her right leg to arterial disease the summer after my freshman year of college, I really thought she wasn’t going to live long. Two year later, she went on a trip to Israel and walked up mountains on her prosthetic leg because she had always wanted to visit the places where Jesus walked. Like a boss. 

4.     She and my Pap are farmers. Not only did I get to run around all over a farm when I was a kid, but do you have any idea how many cats they've had? Their excuse is that the cats keep down the rodents around the barn, but I know that deep down, they just like cats, too. And I have gotten to play with and name so so so many kittens. (Also, they consistently conspire with me to convince Mom to let me bring home kittens. I got two cats this way).

According to the caption under this picture I found, I named the white cat
Precisoca. But I didn't bring cats home until my debating skills became as creative
as my naming skills... Mam-maw and I just played with them at her house.

(gratuitous kitten shot)

5.     There are brave men and women who fight to protect us, and keep fighting when they come home. I am grateful for their sacrifice and courage. (How is this related? Shortly before losing her second leg, Mam-maw confided in me that they had shown her a Wounded Warrior video that showed how the double amputees put on their prostheses, and that she was pretty sure she couldn’t do it. Until she explained it to me, I didn’t realize how much harder it was to put on two prostheses instead of one, or just how much strength was required. Somehow knowing that makes me appreciate our service-men and -women even more.) 

(more gratuitous kitten shots)

6.     Mam-maw is generous, hardworking, and cares for others in her life sacrificially. I have learned from her example to value life, even if the life in question isn’t given much value in our society, like my mentally and physically handicapped aunt. My Mam-maw loves people in her life for who they are, not for what they can do, and I am exceedingly grateful for her example.