Life Lessons Series: Life Is What Happens When You Are Making Other Plans - Musician John Lennon

Life Lesson #7

Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

My grandmother Alvira died on December 30, 2004, my 22nd birthday, in Guyana South America, thousands of miles away but it was exactly where she wanted to be. They say there is no such thing as an untimely death but the timing of Alvira’s passing always felt planned to my broken heart. You see, I was in Ottawa, ON the day she died, making plans for my birthday, making plans to reunite with my estranged boyfriend, making plans for New Year’s Eve, making plans for my final semester at Carleton University and making plans for my bright and shiny future. Then life happened. 

Supporting Without Understanding: Accepting What I’ll Never Fully Know

Guest Post by J.R.

I was home for the weekend when my mom told me what had happened. Onika had tried to jump out of a moving car on the highway. She was now in the psych ward at the hospital—just ten minutes away from my parents’ place. When visiting hours came, I never went.

I don’t know if it was fear, avoidance, or just not knowing what to say, but I stayed away. The next time I saw her was at our annual family gathering on Boxing Day. She was the same, but different. She smiled, laughed, made jokes. But there was something behind her eyes I couldn’t place.

Fast forward to the summer, and I got a call from my aunt asking me to come by. I showed up, not knowing I was about to walk into my first manic episode.

Onika thought she was under attack. She had hidden knives under mounds of clothes on the stairs of her family home. I only found out because I went to move the clothes, and she stopped me. I remember laughing—maybe out of discomfort, maybe because I didn’t know what else to do. But it wasn’t funny. This was my older cousin, the same one who used to sit on my head when we were kids until the day I finally punched her. But now, everything was different. She didn’t need a rival—she needed support. And at that point, I knew nothing about what that meant.

The ambulance came. I drove my aunt to the hospital to be there for the admission. That was the first time I heard the terms voluntary and involuntary hold. I was 22, and the whole system felt overwhelming. A few weeks later, I went back to visit Onika, determined to support her this time. But the reality of being buzzed in, the weight of it all—it was too much. I stayed, but I never did again.

Finding My Own Way to Support

I couldn’t be there in the way most people might expect. But what I could do was learn. I started researching bipolar disorder, reading everything I could, trying to understand what Onika was going through. That led to conversations, questions, and eventually, something bigger—a mental health podcast where I learned through the experiences of others, including Onika.

Over the last 20 years, I’ve seen several episodes, including the last one, when I called for a wellness check. That led to a four-month stay at Ontario Shores. I’ve witnessed the highs, the lows, the moments of clarity, and the moments when reality seemed to slip away. And through it all, I’ve learned that listening is one of the most powerful forms of support.

I don’t need to understand every thought that races through her mind. I don’t need to relate to the feeling of mania or the depths of depression. But I do need to respect her lived experience—because she is the expert of her own mind.

Finding Peace in Not Knowing

There was a time when I thought I had to get it to be a good support system. That if I could just understand everything about bipolar disorder, I’d be able to help the “right” way. But I’ve come to realize that support isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about showing up in the ways you can.

I still don’t fully understand what it’s like to live with Bipolar disorder, and I never will. But I do know how to listen. I know how to respect her journey. I know that my role isn’t to fix anything, but to be steady, reliable, and open.

For anyone who loves someone with a mental health condition, my advice is this: You don’t have to know it all. You don’t have to say the perfect thing. You just have to be present, however that looks for you. Because sometimes, the best support isn’t in understanding—it’s in simply being there.

A Bipolar Woman’s Self-Reflection: Black Privilege - A Dedication to My Ancestors

The following piece of work was a reflection written in 2016 after experiencing what I call ‘polite racism’ now known as microaggression in my workplace. The interaction that occurred was so quick and seemingly insignificant but it had a profound effect on me. It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel the presence of racism as it stared me in the face the morning I made coffee in my office kitchen and was told it was my job to serve others in my office and I should feel grateful to be there. Rather, it was the privilege of knowing my lived experiences to that point that dictated that walking away from the indignity being handed to me was my right as a Black woman who had fought and earned her seat at every and any table I chose to sit at.

There are always small minds lurking around every corner but It’s how you choose to react to their attempts to tear you down, upset your spirit or steal your joy. On that day in my history I thought it was important not to feel anger and indignation but to reflect on the lived experiences of my ancestors and myself that make me privileged to be black in the world that I inherited and to express empathy and understanding for those who still can’t embrace my blackness.    

Black Privilege-A Dedication to My Ancestors 

I studied history at Carleton University for four years and I have a Bachelor of Arts Honors in the subject. It’s not a Master’s or a PhD and I am not professing to be an expert but I do have four years (+) foundation on the topic.

I have studied Canadian, American, European, Asian and African history. I have studied the history of the world, which is re-written as everyday passes, so it is impossible to ever study it fully.

But this is what I have learned and some of the conclusions I have come to, again based on what I learned.

In the history of the world, at some point EVERYONE WAS OPPRESSED BY SOMEONE FOR SOME SEEMINGLY VALID REASON THAT MADE SENSE IN THAT TIME AND AT THAT TIME.

The English, for example, oppressed the Europeans, the Indians of Southeast Asia, the Asians of South East Asia, the Irish, the Scottish and Africans—this period in history is called Colonization.

They justified their actions with religion and man-made laws and years of feudal tradition and a variety of other territorial ideologies that I won’t go into, because it doesn’t really matter the reason…it’s a fact…it happened.

Before the British Empire, there was the Ottoman Empire and the Roman Empire etc. And for some reason they thought it was a good idea to repress and place value on people and their families and their lives.

A hierarchy was created, the concept was developed, and it has existed since the beginning of time.

Leaders, lead and followers, follow. Sometimes there were good leaders who had the best interest of the people at heart.

More often there were leaders that made selfish decisions, let absolute power cloud their judgment and cause immeasurable, reprehensible damage.

To rule is to serve, some people serve others, and some serve themselves. This is a face for the Ancestors of the people who currently inherit the world.

I have now given you a very broad and general statement about centuries and centuries of history—social history to be specific. It is up to you to go and do your research and then see if you truly agree or disagree with the next statements I am about to make.

Though I have studied world history, the history that I am most concerned with is my own.

I was born in Guyana, South America. My ancestors were a part of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Essentially, the ships that left from Africa went to different parts of the world, not just North America.

If I were born a slave, I would have been raised on a Guyanese sugar plantation. If I looked the way I do now, had the same spirit or energy, if I could make people laugh or sing a song or had any special talent, I would have been a House Slave.

If I had no value beyond the ability to work long hours in extreme conditions, I would have been in the fields.

Based on my knowledge of the Slave Trade and Slavery, I believe this is all true. This is what African slavery looked like all around the world.

I have also thought about what I would have done if I were a slave. Would I be born and live and die a slave? Would I rage against the injustice of the experience and fight and flee to freedom?

I can say with some measure of confidence that I would run, fight and flee. I would risk getting caught and beaten and killed. I would do anything I needed to do to get out.

But I am not a slave. I was not born a slave. I have not lived as a slave and I will not die a slave. So, I can’t say what I would have done, only what I hope I would have the courage to do in that situation.

I am so grateful to my Ancestors for carrying that burden, for being strong, for trusting in God to cast away their worries and fears, for falling in love and making babies and preserving traditions; for being resilient so that I would never have to be in the world that they left me, in the world that I inherited.

Now when I speak to you about my Ancestors, I am not talking about the experiences that shaped an entire faction of people.

I am speaking about the Ancestors that are directly responsible for me being alive because they are the only people I feel I have a right to speak on behalf of. They are a part of me, they make up my history and therefore I have that right.

Based on what I know about my Ancestors, I would say half made the best of an extremely, horrifically bad situation and found a way not just to survive but to thrive in their new circumstance—the other half did not;

They were bitter and angry and resentful and afraid and that was their choice. That was how they dealt with the destruction, degradation and devastation that slavery caused.

There are 400 (+) years of history documenting the slave experience, interpreting and re-interpreting them and it is painful to listen to, look at and read.

So, I never tried to tackle it all but instead I tried to make sense of how I came to be here and what I wanted my living history to be.

This is what I know about how I came to be in the world that I inherited…

My family, my parents had a series of life experiences that led them to each other and then on December 30, 1982, I was born. That is when My History begins.

My parents worked hard, they sacrificed and fought for me. They took me from a place where our Ancestors were slaves, where I could have been born and lived and died as a slave and they freed me.

Because my parents grew up in Guyana, they knew all the challenges that I would have to face and that I would inherit if we stayed.

They wanted better for me, more than they had, they had a dream just like Martin Luther King Jr. and they did everything in their power to make it happen; fast forward 42 years to today…

I am a 1st Generation Guyanese immigrant with a Bachelor of Arts Honors in History, a Graduate Certificate in Public Relations and Communications from Humber College and a Graduate Certificate in Event Management from Durham College.

I have a deep and abiding trust in the Lord that He continues to walk with me on my purpose filled journey through life and He will be there to catch me when I stumble or fall.

I am currently pursuing my goals of being an author and public speaker with dreams of pursuing other things and the confidence and security of knowing that everything I want is within my reach. I just have to keep working hard and I will get there.

My past experiences, my living history, the story I have written for myself because of my parent’s hard work, courage, perseverance, lack of pride, resilience, patience, tolerance, and overall awesomeness—I know every dream I have ever had is going to become a reality.

This glass ceiling that I heard so much about growing up; the limitations of Black People, my parents shattered that ceiling before it ever got in my way, so I have lived a life as if it never existed.

Ideas, criticisms, labels and stereotypes associated with black people, they always offended me, but I never let them affect the decisions I made about my life and future.

If the world said I couldn’t do it because I am Black, I was always hell-bent on showing them I could do it, not because I am black but because I am me…

Onika L. Dainty…the sum total of my experiences, living history, constantly learning, never asking permission or forgiveness (unless I really need it which, I usually don’t with permission but always do with forgiveness).

If I fail, I take a step back and ask myself why? I look to my support system of family and friends because I know they are always there.

And I ultimately learned not to blame people outside of my control for the things that are inside my control.

This security and freedom have given me the confidence to smile and laugh and talk to and listen to and learn from all kinds of people from all different parts of the world that I inherited. I look at things from my point of view and let people look at things from theirs.

I do not judge or diminish other people’s experiences. I do not subscribe to negative labels, and I do not let the concept of Racism and all the burdens it brings to dictate my actions.

I am kind to everyone until they give me a reason not to be. I try not to be cruel but instead remember that they are the sum total of their life experience and that they are living history so, every day is a new opportunity to change.

I believe in love and not hate, though I know they both exist in the world that I inherited. I know how conflict and wars between people and nations begin but I still can’t say I understand why because although it is happening in the world that I inherited it is not a part of my living history.

I can only be responsible and accountable for the decisions I make when faced with conflict, adversity and challenges because according to my Ancestors and my history and what I have learned, all that they expect of me is:

To do my best, to work hard, to trust in God, to fight when it is time to fight, to flee when it is time to flee, to love and fall in love and make babies and to pass on traditions; to respect them and the burden they carried on their backs across an entire ocean, beyond 400 (+) years of struggle and pain to give me the gifts I have today—the gift of security, safety, confidence and support.

That is the world that I live in, it’s the only one I can exist in, the only one I know and can survive and thrive in like they did. That is the world that they left me, the world that I inherited.

That is my Black Privilege. What’s yours?

In Recognition of Black History Month and My Ancestors

Life Lessons Series: The Three Things in Life That You Can’t Get Back Once They Are Gone

Life Lesson #2

The Complex Mother-Daughter Dynamic: Growing Up with a Nurse Mom and Bipolar Disorder

Just Pray

My mother has always been a devout Christian, there are actually a number of God-fearing women in my family including my dearly departed grandmother Alvira. The irony about my mother is she is also a Registered Nurse, a woman of science which in today's society is considered a contradiction. 

Since I was a little girl my routine was school and homework during the week and church on Sundays. Sunday was God’s day and no sickness or exaggerated stomach ache got in the way of worshiping the Lord. To honour my mother I had to honour God which meant look good for Jesus, go to Sunday school followed by a two hour service where I was instructed to sit in silence so as not to say anything to embarrass my family.

Even when we were back home in Guyana I was more of a religious rouge than a good Christian girl. I rarely received the Sunday school lesson, listening only enough to get the jist so I could report to my mom on our walk home. I was always getting caught in lies and half truths and I forever questioned the word of God. 

When I was 12-years old I was kicked out of Sunday school to the utter shame of my mother. Yep folks, I was a Sunday school drop out but I would like to point out that was the only education I didn’t complete in my 35 years of academia. After this incident I announced to both my mother and grandmother that I would never set foot in church again. I say this all to say this inciting incident was the beginning of the tensions between my mother and I, a tension that would fester and grow especially in the years that followed when my mental health became more and more precarious. 

In 2016, ten years after my Bipolar diagnosis my mother and I were having a talk about some adverse effects I was experiencing from an antidepressant I had started taking. I was concerned because I had developed insomnia and hair loss. My nurse mother’s response was the following: “I don’t know why you have to take all this medication, you need to get off of them, you need to just pray.”

She had a history of giving religious-like advice when I tried to talk to her about my mental illness but on that day in history I had had enough and snapped. My response to her flippant advice was this: I asked her why it was okay for her to tell her Bipolar daughter that she didn’t need meds and the power of prayer would cure me. “Why do you think you can pray the cray away,” I continued my tirade and expressed how tired of her not taking my mental illness seriously. I accused her of being unsupportive asking her why she couldn’t just accept my diagnosis because it wasn’t up for debate. I told her when she spoke that way it diminished what I’ve been going through for over a decade. 

Now all of this was said with a lot of yelling, tears and years of pent up frustration so before things went further in an even more hurtful and negative direction I hung up the phone on her.

At that moment I realized that even though my mom is a woman of science and a believer in God she had no real knowledge of psychology or how the mind works.

My mother had been with me every step of the way in the first 10 years of my mental health journey. She was the parent who visited daily with lunch and dinner when I was locked in the psychiatric unit of the hospital. She attended all my psychiatric visits post-hospitalization. She managed my medication; she nursed me back to health; she financially supported me going back to school and yes she prayed for me when I didn’t know how to talk to God for myself. But after that fight I realized her actions though out of love were mostly out obligation rather than empathy and understanding. My mom is an amazing human and an even better nurse and she did what any nurse would do–she took care of me even when she couldn’t comprehend my illness or how that illness affected my life choices. 

One thing that was a constant point of contention was the weight gain the medication and depression caused. Before my Bipolar diagnosis I was a size 4 once I started taking mental health medication I ballooned to a size 14 and my mother had a hard time accepting that. She constantly made negative comments about my weight not out of cruelty but rather out of a need to hold onto the daughter she knew before the chaos and uncertainty of mental illness entered our lives. This weight expectation was hard on my self-image, self-esteem and ultimately had negative effects on my mental health.

There was a lot of fear and misunderstanding that clouded my relationship with my mother. Fear of disappointing her because as soon as things seem to be settling down, it could be for weeks, months or even years. Mania seemed to be waiting for us around the corner. My mother and I experienced a lot of misunderstandings due to lack of education on both our parts around my illness and substance use disorder. It was only when I stepped away from her and the rest of my family was I able to find stability without familial pressures. It was during this period as well my brave mother sought help to understand her Bipolar daughter and all the challenges that came with my mental illness. 

After the infamous phone call of 2016, I realized I had a lot of bottled up and volatile emotions toward my mother and I had to learn to express myself in a more meaningful and impactful way so I started writing her letters, taking time to think about what I wanted to say and the best ways to say it. Once, I invited her to a therapy session where I read one of my more difficult letters to her in a safe space. We both cried and hugged each other. I practice this method to this day.

Final Thoughts

Now, my mother and I simply talk to each other, we take time to have the difficult conversations we were always afraid to have with each other. We practice radical honesty even if it hurts or makes one or both of us feel uncomfortable. We cry together, we laugh together and we dance together because we are in a much better place. I set boundaries with her around my mental health and she respects them. We go to church (yes church) every Sunday together and I finally understand what she meant not “Just Pray,” but “Pray” to say thank-you to God for watching over us and bringing us to a happier healthier place in our lives. My mother is not the first one I call in crisis but as strange as it is she will always be my number one person. 

We are still on a journey of healing and self-discovery both together and individually. Continued growth and education on mental illness has come as a result of open and honest communication. We have conversations that take us beyond the stigma into a place where the mother-Bipolar daughter relationship isn’t just surviving its thriving. 

“I love you a Universe Mama, thank-you for “just praying” for me and supporting me no matter where in the world my journey takes me.”  

A Bipolar Woman's Final Dedication - Let's Take A Walk

Dedicated to Kim: My Big Sister, My Person.

My phone would ring and on the other end of the line would be Kim, her voice soft and sweet and knowing. She’d say, “Hey Sis, let's take a walk.” These walks by the Ajax Lakeshore started in 2009 after I fell into a deep depressive episode. I was locked away in my room for months and no one could reach me, no one could understand. But one day I looked up through the sadness and pain and there was Kim with a smile on her face and determination in her eyes. She asked me what would feel good in that moment, what would relieve some of the pain and anxiety that had defined my days and I answered, “the lake.” Kim smiled and said, “I love the lake, let’s take a walk.”

It was almost spring and the cold was biting but I could tell she didn’t mind, Kim was always a child of nature. At first we would just sit on the bench and watch the water in silence because Kim knew instinctually I didn’t have the strength to walk after months of being bed ridden, she knew all I needed was to breathe and she would breathe with me, when the tears of frustration and hopelessness came, she would hold my hand offer her shoulder, hold me tightly in her warm embrace and let me cry encouraging me to release the pain. And only when she felt movement was the next natural step she would look into my tear filled eyes and smile that knowing Kim smile full of kindness and empathy, understanding radiating from every pore of her being but most of all determination ever-present then she’d say “Let’s take a walk.”

The process of getting me moving again took hours, days and weeks and Kim never gave up. She would call me everyday and say, “Hey Sis, let’s take a walk.”and we’d go and watch the sunrise over Lake Ontario, we’d talk about the miracles of God, we’d talk about our futures full of hope, joy and possibilities, we’d stop by our favourite Willow tree and practice Tai Chi, we’d walk barefoot on the sandy beach picking up heart shaped rocks for my collection. On our long walks along the shoreline Kim with her curious nature would often be the one to venture onto paths unknown and the roads less travelled. That was Kim, adventurous, fearless, risk taking, wise, with a free spirit that burst through her touching everything and everyone around her, simply making us better, making me better. 

For years “Let’s take a walk” was code for both our need to escape to our happy place. They say God is in everything but Kim and I never felt closer to God or each other than on those walks by the lakeshore. On those long walks we forged an unbreakable bond. At first it was she who supported me in my journey to mental wellness but after many years, dozens of walks, hundreds of conversations and thousands of steps we grew to support each other. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Kim took those steps with me. Her unconditional love, unwavering support, patience, non-judgment, empathy, acceptance and understanding are among the reasons I’m alive and well today. 

Kim had a unique way of knowing what you needed even when you didn’t know. She was stubborn in her determination and authentic and passionate about the people she loved. And Kim Taslim loved me. She walked with me, she comforted me, she danced with me, she laughed with me, she supported my dreams, she never gave up on me even when I gave up on myself. She was my Big Sister, My Mentor, My Teacher, One of my Greatest Advocates and she was and always will be my Person. So Taslim, Sis, I will be at the lakeshore where we had our best moments, our happiest memories, where you taught me what true love means. I will stand by our Willow tree, watch the sunrise and wait to hear you whisper from the sky above: “Hey Sis, Let’s Take A Walk.”

How to Talk About Your Bipolar Diagnosis with Friends and Family

By Onika Dainty