Staying Alive Inside While Feeling Dead to the World
A too-much tipping point is closer than you think and anyone can end up on it.
One of the first sentences I remember reading—not in a kids’ book—was on my parents’ copy of I’M OK – YOU’RE OK, a best-selling self-help book from the late 1960s. I could hear the big, black, block letters shouting out from the mustard yellow book cover any time I walked past it on the chunky oak coffee table or 48-inch wood veneer bookcase in our living room.
Though I couldn’t read the pages inside, I loved what seemed like the book’s idea—figuring out feelings to help everyone feel okay. But as I grew older, the sound of conflict between my parents grew louder, and I grew more skeptical yet simultaneously more drawn to wanting to understand feelings.
My parents grew up when feelings had few words. Feelings were obstacles, nuisances, and nothing to pay much attention to—and never given into. Feelings were frequently used to control. Their childhood homes sounded like worlds apart even though they both grew up in rural white Wisconsin. Every family is its own mini-culture.
My dad grew up in a rigid and insular family within an isolated tiny town of cousins. Life was synchronized with the Catholic church in a sometimes comforting other times stifling way. It was also a place for Dad to get a break from his parents’ nonstop bickering. Sometimes silence is bliss. My grandparents loved their kids, but love was doled out in a measured, inconsistent way.
My mom’s family life was more chaotic, with less to count on, but love was freely expressed “to the moon and back.” After her parents divorced and then her dad died, Mom ended up in foster care. She lived in three different foster homes as a teen and never had any counseling, or even explanation—for anything. Syncing feelings to fit in with your surroundings became a necessary survival tool. Mom survived but always wanted better for my three brothers and me.
I wasn’t OK, but neither were most things
Though I couldn’t read the pages inside, I loved what seemed like the book’s idea—figuring out feelings to help everyone feel okay.
When I first started “acting out” in high school, Mom took me where Catholic families went with personal problems: a meeting with the parish priest. Father Sullivan had a 1960s-era pensive detachment, looking off in a 45-degree direction beyond the circling cloud of cigarette smoke. I don’t remember exactly what he said. But I know he didn’t act in a sky-was-falling way some grown-ups did, which only made me feel worse. His laissez-faire message was, “This too shall pass.”
That was better than the advice my parents got from their parish priest early on in their marriage. “You’re on completely different wavelengths—one of you is going to have to change,” he told my barely adult parents. After Dad refused, Mom decided she would be the one to change to save their marriage. Trying to do the impossible nearly killed her.
Mom knew mental health matters in a way that many learn through experience. She soon found professional help for me. None of it really helped. But what meant far more—and ended up saving me—was that she believed me when I told her I was struggling, even when she didn’t understand.
How do you feel? What are you thinking? Why are you doing this? Even now, I’d struggle to answer any of those questions in a few coherent sentences. Back then, I couldn’t answer them, period. They said I had an adjustment disorder. But deep down, I didn’t want to adjust. I didn’t want to fit into surroundings that felt weird.
As a “troubled teen,” I felt pressured to find a single puzzle piece that explained everything. One aha-moment or recovered memory, and it’d all make sense why I was emotionally struggling. But most struggles seemed to be caused by lots of things. On top of that, a lot of puzzle pieces weren’t even acknowledged or open for discussion then. The most pervasive problems in my life—in most people’s lives it seemed—weren’t talked about in any real way.
I wanted to stand by a tree, surrounded by other trees, and feel grounded by the solidness and oldness of its trunk underneath its sprawling canopy.
Busse Woods, a suburban oasis
I went to Elk Grove High School, six miles from my Des Plaines home. The Chicago suburban village of Elk Grove was adjacent to a forest preserve roughly equal in size to each of its evenly split industrial and mostly mid-century residential spaces. And yes, there were elks in a grove too.
Busse Woods bustled during warm months with corporate picnics, family reunions, and anyone who wanted to be in the swampy flat woodlands with maples and oaks, human-made trails and waterways—an oasis surrounded by countless corporate beige or mirrored office buildings, big-box retail of every kind. restaurant chains and mega-mall Woodfield.
During cold months, emptier lots had sporadically parked cars. Some people ventured outside. But mostly, cars were filled with people eating fast food, sleeping under blankets or doing other things. My first boyfriend hung out there with his 20-something friends—a place to get wasted that wasn’t a parents’ garage or basement.
Busse Woods was like a free kitchen for Dad after he moved out. He’d pick us up for a visit, run into Jewel to grab some food, and then feed us at the preserve, using the free grill, tables and water supply. Dad kept life “new in the package” any time he could. If you didn’t hook up a stove or open a window, they’d never need to be fixed.
Mom loved long walks along the meandering trails, always keeping her tennis shoes in the car for an impromptu escape from her sitting too-long corporate desk job. Though she grew up adamantly wanting to live near sidewalks, part of her will always be the little girl spending countless, clockless days outside, barefoot and free-roaming, on her family’s Wisconsin farm.
For me, Busse Woods was an escape from claustrophobic, too-much high school moments. It was only steps away, with an entrance directly across the street. Mostly, I wanted to stand by a tree, surrounded by other trees. I wanted to feel grounded by the solidness and oldness of its trunk and feel safe underneath its sprawling canopy.
Even without the chaos in my life, I think high school would have felt semi-disturbing. I always thought it’d be an interesting experiment to put random cohorts of adults based on birth year into an institutional setting and tell them what they were supposed to do every hour of the day. How many would make the right choice each day and go? And what would happen to those who went?
Being alone in the woods comforts like nothing else. No matter how still and quiet the day, something subtle soothed before sensory gaps in sound and sight turned into uncomfortable stretches of nothingness. I found that weird place that sometimes came from nowhere. And other times I sought. A place where time slowly moved forward, frame by frame, while a low-key whirring feeling and sound permeated my body. A place I now know is a place others know too.
Taking in the tiny details of the tree’s bark, hardened and deadened by time, I felt its purpose in protecting life that was still growing and changing like I was. How do you stay alive inside while feeling dead to the world?—that’s what I wanted to know.
My brother Patrick and me
I see this picture of my brother Patrick and me from over 30 years ago and have a hard time making sense of the divergence that happened in our lives from that point on. I’m not talking about differences in the type of work we did or where we lived. We’re different people and wouldn’t want the same lives—that’s all okay, even good.
I’m wondering why the two of us, coming from the same family, ended up in such different places in terms of basic security, like healthcare, housing, employment? Or even safe drinking water? Or reliable heat during the Minnesota winter months?
In the picture above, we were both out of high school. He lived with Dad and me with Mom. He was welding and racing and I was cocktail waitressing and thinking about nursing school. We both liked AC/DC. He ate fast food and I ate fat-free fake food (which I think was worse). He smoked Marlboro reds and I preferred the lights (which I think were just as bad). How did our 1990s start so similarly but end so differently?
“Some days, I feel ready to go walk into the woods,” Patrick told me in one of our last phone calls. He was struggling in lots of ways and seeing fewer tangible solutions to longstanding problems. The mixed-up triangular mess of complex trauma, financial instability and chronic health issues was becoming more tangled and heavier.
How do you help someone who doesn’t feel safe enough to accept it?
As I went through the mindless motions of folding clothes I made the case for him to move by me. One I’d made before but I made again because I’m a clinger to things of the slightest chance. But also, I didn't know what else to say. All the obvious other things had already been said at that point. I knew more of what not to say. Things that would make him feel even shittier—understandably so—coming from someone living a world of comfort away.
How can you help someone feel they’re OK just as they are, when others don’t see them that way?
A few months before Patrick died, he told me he felt like he mattered less—and was even trusted less—because he was unmarried. “No one cares about some fat old guy who lives alone with no kids or a family,” he said. I understood what he meant. Marriage can be another form of credentialing, often a factor that determines wealth and security. And people are stupidly judged in lots of ways. Why is a “family man” inherently more trust-worthy than one who’s not?
I didn’t have answers then and I still don’t. I know my brother didn’t want to die. But he was tired of hoping and trying and wanted to be some place where he could be alive and unbothered. I knew that feeling. I think everyone does. But fleeting feelings are different from lingering ones. A too-much tipping point is closer than you think and anyone can end up on it.
Carrying different loads
Patrick died of “natural causes,” at a younger age than any male family member going back many generations. He’d given up. And I know I would’ve too, probably much sooner than he had.
Blame the Marlboros, the extra hundred pounds, or Mountain Dew and generic Hostess pies. There were loads of reasons. But those weren’t the reasons.
I’ve just started listening to David Leonhardt’s Ours Was the Shining Future, a book that delves into some socioeconomic reasons that seem to explain some of why our paths diverged. I’m sure the pandemic also played a role in ways that aren’t fully realized or understood. But there were many reasons. Personal and family reasons—cultural ones too. And as always, the randomness of chance.
When a parent treats you like crap, why is it so hard to let go?
Healing from childhood trauma was harder for Patrick than me because he carried a heavier load from Dad’s side of the family. You were chided for showing vulnerability. And you weren’t allowed to feel safe enough to ask for help—or even accept it, no matter how much you needed it or how appreciative you were.
The heavy-handed gender stereotyping seemed to make life worse for almost everyone when we were growing up. Sure, having a second 23rd X-chromosome versus Y has some biological significance, but nowhere near the emphasis placed on it.
I never felt more made-of-sugar-and-spice nice than my three brothers, even though I kept being told I was. That annoyed me. And I’ve written plenty about far worse cultural aspects of being a girl or woman. But sometimes, it seemed like my brothers were more boxed into lonelier places than I was. Places that felt unnatural to them. As a mom of three boys, those are legacies I don’t want to be passed down.
There are things I’ll never understand but still believe can be better. Hoping that something new is possible seems necessary for feeling alive inside.
I’ll continue this story next post whenever I have time. Plus, interview posts will be coming soon! But I wanted to end with something from my present life.
Like every generation, I’m hoping for better. At the same time, I’m starting to hear my young adult kids’ thoughts and feelings on wanting better and different than what they grew up with. Not gonna lie; I’ve caught myself having reflexive, defensive responses at times. But I consciously try to remember they get to own their own stories and write their own future. And in a calmer state, I see something new I couldn’t see before.
I also have more compassion for any parent, at any time. I feel like I know less now than I felt like did at the start.
Our house is always filled with feelings, and of course they’re not all pleasant. Because who the hell is pleasant all the time? Still, I do try to hold on longer to some of the feelings floating around more than others. It helps me stay afloat.
My favorite saying this spring comes from our second grader: “I feel like I’m fainting in happiness.” Lately, when I feel moments of joy, those words make the moment last a bit longer. Tiny moments like that keep me feeling alive on days I feel dead to the world.
My favorite relatable read this week: “The moment I finally called myself a writer” Everything
creates is stunning in layers of ways. “I never once imagined that writing would be the thing that I needed to do.”—same.
Thank you Daphne. I can relate to so much of this. Although my brother's trajectory wasn't so different from mine on the surface, it was very much so internally. I often wonder why I was able to cope when he couldn't.
Very thoughtful and resonant. Thank you. And my parents had that book too - as soon as you mentioned the title, the cover popped into my head!