Unhealthy

I haven’t really told this story before.

I’ve been pretty open with my experiences with depression and anxiety, medication, and therapy, both on this blog and in real life. I speak and write in the hope that my experiences will resonate with others and encourage them to find help. I hope that this story will do the same.

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This is the story of my most recent romantic relationship, which began in 2009 and ended in 2010. There are plenty of reasons that I haven’t had a boyfriend since then (college, grad school, internships, and work, among others), but the more I reflect on this, the more I begin to wonder whether this experience has also played a role. I haven’t even talked about this much in therapy (which is unusual for me), and since my therapist is still on maternity leave, I’ve had lots of time to think on it.

I met Nick through my summer job in 2009. Nick is not actually his name, because I want to protect his identity as I talk about our relationship. Plus, he’s married now and it wouldn’t be fair to identify him now after all these years. Anyway, it had been about 2 years since I had had a boyfriend, so I was very excited to be feeling things for Nick. You know how it is when you’re just starting out in a relationship – all flutters, and smiles, and covert flirting, especially if you are seeing each other at work. We started dating for real in mid-August, and did our best to act like nothing was going on between us. I’m told that we did a spectacularly bad job at this and everyone knew we were dating.

The first few months were really great. Nick was majoring in electrical engineering at Grand Valley, and I was doing my third (and final) semester at Grand Rapids Community College. He had a townhouse with a couple of other guys near GVSU’s main campus, and since I lived with my parents, we spent most of our time at his place. We spent time together almost every weekend, every Thursday night because we loved NBC’s primetime comedy lineup, and whatever other evenings we could manage. I never had much homework (I was at CC, after all), so I would just go over to Nick’s and keep him company while he did his homework.

September 17 was one of the highlights of our time together. Nick took me to Grand Haven, where we had first met, and we went out to dinner. We wandered around on the boardwalk in the mild evening air and as the sun was sinking toward the horizon, we made for the pier at Grand Haven State Park. We watched the sunset from the end of the pier, which was and continues to be one of my favorite places on earth. Just as the sun disappeared under the water, I turned to Nick, he turned to me, and I just knew.

It was the first kiss of our relationship, and my first kiss as a human being. It was perfect. We were basically a rom-com called Engineering Bliss.

September rolled into October, and with it, my 20^th birthday. I had never had a boyfriend during my birthday, so I was very excited. Nick picked me up at my house, bearing a dozen red carnations (because “they last way longer than roses,” he said. I loved how practical he was.) I had never gotten flowers from a guy before, and I fell for him even harder. He took me to dinner at Bentham’s, downtown, and afterward we walked along the river hand-in-hand and being all young-lovey. He took me back to his place in Allendale and presented me with birthday gifts, one of which was my favorite movie, Dirty Dancing. He knew that I absolutely loved that movie, but vowed he would never watch it with me because he “would have to turn in his man card.” I thought he was funny at the time when he said things like that.

When we weren’t together, we were on Skype Instant Messenger almost all the time. We always had an IM going while we did our homework in the evenings. I didn’t have texting at that point, and neither of us was big on talking on the phone, so IM was perfect. We talked about everything, from how our days went to big life questions. We discussed things like where we wanted to work when we graduated, what our ideal company/organization was like, where we might want to live after we got married, what places in West Michigan had good schools and safe neighborhoods, how many kids we might want, what names we liked, and how much we wanted our families to be involved in our kids’ lives. We talked about these things as if marriage was a given. I don’t know how that happened.

We were 20 and 19. We were halfway through college. Neither of us had a full-time job or any significant income. A stranger looking in would have thought we were out of our minds, planning our entire future together when we knew nothing of the world or life’s experiences. However, I was 100% convinced that Nick was The One and that getting married was only a matter of time. As a love-blinded 20-year-old, I thought I was ready any time. Several of my friends had serious boyfriends with marriage in the near future, and I was terrified of being left out. Or left behind. Nick, on the other hand, felt that we should wait to get engaged until after I studied abroad. We both knew I had to do a semester abroad for my program, and he said several times that he didn’t want to be without his fiancée for five months. I didn’t love this plan, since I wasn’t leaving for another 12 months, and then would have another 5 months on top of that in Spain. I could see his point, though, and agreed that we would have to wait. It certainly didn’t stop us from planning aspects of our wedding, though.

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As I’ve thought all of this over, I can’t pinpoint a moment when the relationship started to go south. Looking back, it was a bunch of little things that I ignored and minimized and rationalized. One event that comes to mind is Thanksgiving that year. School-wise, I was doing fine. Classes were a breeze (except for Chemistry I), the end of CC and the transfer to Calvin were in sight, and I was just crossing off days. That Chem class was super hard, and I had to get at least an 80.0% to transfer the credit to Calvin, but everything else was just peachy. Nick was struggling with his classes. He was failing one and close to failing two others. All three classes were in his major, so he would have to take them over, and they were very specialized classes, so only one professor ever taught them.

During Thanksgiving Break, I spent my time at his house whenever I wasn’t needed for celebrations with my own family. That became a point of conflict – Nick brought me to all of his family parties and was always so excited to introduce me to people. I didn’t quite feel comfortable bringing him to events with my extended family, though. I thought this was reasonable, since we’d only been dating for 3 months at that point, conveniently forgetting that, on some days, I was ready to marry this guy. I was afraid to bring him to meet all of my family – on one side of the family, I would have been the first person to ever bring a significant other to a family function.  I knew he didn’t like to be the center of attention, and I knew that my family would be all over him. I was trying to protect him, but Nick saw it as me trying to keep our relationship a secret. He asserted that I was ashamed of him or trying to phase him out of my life. I chalked his reaction up to being stressed about his schoolwork, and didn’t worry about it much.

Things kept sliding downhill into December. Nick’s grades weren’t improving, no matter what he did, and failing at least one class was quickly becoming a very real possibility. I tried to help him in any way I could – I wasn’t much use, since I knew nothing about electrical engineering or complicated math, but I figured that, at the very least, I could be of emotional/mental support to him. It was hard to be around him at this time, partly because he was so stressed out and frustrated, and partly because I didn’t know how to make it better. I tried to help him see his situation a bit more rationally, saying, “Nick, even if you do fail this class, the world won’t end. It happens to people all the time. Nick, I’ll still love you even if you have to take a class over again.” He was silent for a moment, then turned to me with a scowl. He asked, “Andrea, have you ever failed a class before?” He knew that I hadn’t, and I had to admit that I hadn’t. He turned back to his computer and said, “Didn’t think so. You have no idea what I’m going through and you never will.” He didn’t speak to me for the rest of that afternoon.

For some insane reason, GVSU decided not to post final grades until after Christmas that year. This meant that I spent the bulk of my Christmas vacation with an anxious and grumpy Nick. Wanting to be the ever-loyal and supportive girlfriend, I spent most days at his house, even though it was tense and difficult to be around him. Nothing I did could cheer him up, and I felt terrible about that. My final grades were posted about a week after final exams, and to my enormous relief, I passed Chem I with an 80.6%. I could transfer it to Calvin and never have to take it again. Nick knew how much I had been struggling with that class, helping me with the homework whenever he could, and sending notes of encouragement when I had tests or big projects due. I thought he would be happy to hear that I could transfer the credit and not have to worry about it anymore.

He had the opposite reaction.

“How could you throw that in my face like this?! You know what I’m dealing with right now! Seeing your passing grade just reminds me that my grades won’t be passing. And now, thanks to you, I’m feeling even worse about it.”

I’m not great with confrontation. I shut down. I backtracked, I apologized over and over, and tried desperately to make things right. I began to feel really terrible about myself, telling myself that I was a terrible girlfriend and deserved to be treated that way. I know now that his treatment of me was unfair, but at the time, I believed what he said to me and I accepted how I felt afterward.

2010 started and I hoped that things would turn around. New semester, new classes, new start. I forget now how that class ended up for Nick, but I do remember hearing that more than half of his classmates failed or were close to failing, and so he felt a lot better about things. I was eager to forget about it and put it all behind us. And things went pretty well for a while – I didn’t start at Calvin until the very end of January because of Interim, which meant that I had lots of time to hang out with Nick without having homework to focus on. I spent lots of evenings and just about every weekend at his house, keeping him company while he did homework and watching The Office. We both absolutely loved that show.

Once I transferred to Calvin, a lot of my free time got sucked up with homework, projects, commitments outside of class time, and the socializing that goes along with a school like Calvin. I was still living at home, but I had a lot more to do, so I couldn’t go to Nick’s house as often as I used to. He often talked about how he was lonely in his townhouse when I wasn’t there. I asked him why he didn’t invite other friends over, or go over to their houses to do homework and stuff. He told me that he didn’t have many friends, and the friends he did have were the ‘school-only’ kind. “That’s why I want to spend so much time with you – otherwise, I’m just sitting here by myself, lonely.”

It was around this time that I started as a hired musician for a worship team at a church in Grand Rapids. I jumped at the chance to make some extra money doing something I loved, but it meant that two of my Sundays every month were spent doing that instead of attending church with Nick. I don’t think he liked this new commitment I had taken on. I would still go to his house for lunch afterward, but he kept saying that it just wasn’t the same and that he really wanted to take advantage of every minute we could spend together during the week. Minutes that were being steadily diverted to other things in my life. Shortly after this, he started picking up weekend shifts at his job, and it turned out that his Sunday shifts were opposite my worship team gigs. He would be working when I wasn’t playing, and when he wasn’t working, I would be playing guitar, and couldn’t come to church with him.

I began to feel really bad about all the things I had taken on. Again, Nick asserted that I was phasing him out of my life and spending less and less time with him. He told me he wished that I could cut down to once a month, or, better yet, that money wasn't a concern and I could cut it out completely. He told me that he hated sitting alone in church and that it was always much better when I was there sitting with him. He warned me that if I couldn’t rustle up the time to spend with him, he would break up with me and find someone who did want to spend time with him.

Pause. If we had been rational about this, there were so many potential solutions. What if he tried switching his work shifts to the same weekends I was playing? What if he came to the Grand Rapids church on the Sundays I was playing? What if he sat with his parents at his church? These should have been warning signs – why couldn’t he be happy (or at least neutral) that I had found an easy $50 every month doing something I really loved? Why wasn’t it enough that I spent Saturdays and Sundays after church at his house on weekends when he didn’t work? Why was I the one responsible for his social life and his dissatisfaction with it? Why did the burden fall solely on me to ensure that he was getting social interaction and not going crazy alone in his townhouse?

Unpause. Oh my gosh, he’s going to break up with me. I can’t let that happen! I don’t want to be dumped! I love him! There’s gotta be something I can do to make this better. He means so much to me and I can’t lose him. In short, he had taken us out of the rational and into the emotional with that threat of a breakup. He began to use the “if you really loved me, you would…” any time he was upset about something. And I fell for it – I believed him when he said that I must not love him because I wasn’t doing whatever it was at the time. I was constantly on edge about the status of our relationship.

My emotional state became directly tied to Nick’s emotional state. I was afraid to celebrate anything until I was sure that he was in a good mood. I was afraid to spend time with him, yet knew that I had to in order to make him feel better. I came away crying almost every time we chatted on IM. For those who don’t know me, this is pretty significant – I don’t cry at very much. But now I was crying daily. I didn’t know that this was not normal for a romantic relationship. I was double-thinking every single thing that came out of my mouth when I was around him, terrified that the smallest comment would send him spiraling, and that it would be my fault.

Sometime around Valentine’s Day, Nick began to say things like “this relationship is the only good thing in my life right now,” and “If you break up with me, I won’t have anything left to live for.” Breaking up with him had never even entered my mind – remember, I was terrified that he would break up with me! No matter how many times I reassured him that I was in this for the long haul, he wasn’t convinced. On days that he was really upset, he would end many sentences with “we’re done.” For example, “say that to me one more time and we’re done.” Or “if you don’t start liking eggs and bacon and sausage, we’re done.” Some of them seemed jokey, but there was a layer of seriousness underneath. Looking back, I can see how unbalanced this was – Nick constantly expressing worry that I would break up with him, but, in the next breath, threatening to break up with me over the smallest things. In the middle of it, though, I didn’t see it. My pulse ratcheted up every time the word ‘breakup’ was tossed out and with that, we fell on the emotional side of things.

During my spring break from Calvin, things fell apart. I was on IM with Nick, things were heading south quickly, and I could feel tears coming. I opened up a new chat window with my best friend at the time and started copying and pasting some of the things he had been typing to me. She said to me, “I think it’s time for you end this. This is not a healthy relationship.” She had expressed similar feelings before, when I would tell her how I was feeling about Nick. This time, though, it clicked. She was right. I did have a choice here.

I ended things with Nick that same night over Skype. I KNOW. You’re not supposed to break up with people over text or IM. But here’s the thing – I was crying so hard that talking on the phone was out of the question, I was afraid that I would lose my courage if I waited, and I was genuinely afraid to break up in person. I had no idea how he would react. He had never so much as threatened to be physically abusive before, but I was afraid that a breakup would set him off. After a few minutes, he wrote back:

“Fine.”

Then he logged off.

I haven’t successfully communicated with him since then. I sent a handful of texts, Facebook messages, and emails his way, but each went unanswered. I even tried calling him, but he sent it right to voicemail. Even a year later, I sent him an email saying that I was sorry about how I had ended things and wondering if we could go back to being friends. I did truly miss him. He had a new girlfriend by this time, and I figured that he would be more willing to speak with me now that he was in a different place emotionally.

He never responded.

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My intention in writing this is not to paint a terrible picture of an ex-boyfriend. My intention is not to assassinate his character or carry out some sort of vengeful vendetta. I still truly believe that Nick did not say or do those things with the purpose of hurting me. I’m sure a lot of it was borne out of stress from school and the fact that we had pulled each other under so deeply and so quickly into a serious relationship. I know that I did things wrong in that relationship too. I was very sarcastic and didn’t always know when to stop. In the heat of joking and ribbing each other, I pushed buttons that I knew he was sensitive about, like the fact that he was younger than me. At the same time, though, it has taken me six years to understand that I was not responsible for all of the blame he laid on me. I’m not looking for an apology from Nick. I’ve come to terms with the non-closure of our relationship.

It is what it is.

Rather, my intention in sharing this story is to provide information and help to people who may find themselves in a similar situation. I am extremely hesitant to classify this relationship as ‘emotionally abusive.’ I go back and forth – some days I’m sure it was abusive, other days I wonder if I am overreacting. I do have a history of overreacting, after all. At the very least, this relationship was unhealthy. It was painful, it was scary, and it has changed me. For those of you who know Nick or remember him, my intention was not to smash your perception of him. This all took place six years ago, and I am sure we have both changed considerably since then. He is not a bad person; of that I am confident. I genuinely want him to be happy, and I hope that he has found that happiness and the life he has always wanted with the woman he married.

I balance all of this with the knowledge and acceptance that this was a relationship that went south and should have ended before we both ended up so hurt. Can we hold both of these things? In one hand I hold a painful experience that messed me up for a while; in the other hand I hold best wishes and forgiveness for a man I used to know.

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If you have resonated with any part of my story, let me speak for a few moments about what I’ve learned in grad school and what exactly made this relationship unhealthy.

1.      Someone who wants you to drop certain activities or certain relationships in order to spend more time with them is not thinking of your best interests. They may be trying to control your time and, by extension, you.

2.      Someone who threatens to break up with you with the slightest provocation is not taking your relationship seriously and may be trying to manipulate you into doing what they want you to do.

3.      Someone who can’t be happy for you when good things happen in your life is demonstrating that they want full control of your emotions. They won’t show happiness for you and they will manipulate you into thinking that you don’t deserve to feel happy about that good thing.

4.      If someone gives you the silent treatment or freezes you out when they get upset, they are not resolving conflict in a healthy way. Further communication is on their terms, instead of dealing with things like adults.

5.      Someone who threatens to take their own life if you break up with them is either truly struggling with depression and suicidal ideation, or they are manipulating you into staying under their control. Either way, you both need to find help.

Compared to most unhealthy and/or abusive relationships, I got out relatively unscathed. I was physically safe, and the emotional healing was a matter of time. But other people aren’t so lucky. If you start to feel unsafe in your relationship, it’s time to talk. It’s time to reevaluate with the help of a neutral third person. It might be time to leave, and that will be really hard. But you do not deserve someone who treats you well only when they feel like it. A healthy relationship does not leave you begging for scraps of respect.

You are worth it. I promise.

Op-Ed: Who's in My Bathroom?!

Hello friends. It's me again.

Today I'd like to discuss the uproar that began with the passage of legislation in North Carolina requiring people to use only the bathroom that corresponds to their anatomy and removing the protections afforded to transgender individuals who use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender. The uproar was twofold - civil rights groups protested the 'barbaric' legislation that denied members of the transgender community the right to use the bathroom they felt most comfortable in; i.e. the bathroom that matches their gender, if not their anatomy. Then, proponents of the legislation made the claim that by allowing transgender people to choose their bathroom, that would open the door for anyone to choose their bathroom. Further, this would allow child molesters and rapists to use women's bathrooms because "they could just claim that they, too, are women and we would be powerless to stop them from assaulting us and molesting our daughters."

I would now like to explain a few things and set a few myths straight.

Repealing this legislation would NOT allow men to use women's bathrooms, or women to use men's bathrooms. That separation is still sacred. Repealing the law would reinstate the protections given to transgender people who may be reported for being in the 'wrong' bathroom. In fact, at least twelve states currently have laws prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations (bathrooms, locker rooms, etc.). None of those twelve states has had an increase in rates of sexual assault in bathrooms and locker rooms due to the passage of the non-discrimination laws. Put another way - your bathroom is still as safe as it ever was, and allowing transgender people to use their preferred bathroom has not created spikes in rates of rape or molestation in public bathrooms. (source)

May I suggest that the fear is partially misplaced? Fox News (and other right-wing media sources) are working overtime to create fear of transgender people and sex offenders masquerading as transgender. They want you to believe that a criminal lurks around every stall door and that non-discrimination laws will give them free reign over your safe bathroom. What they never report, however, is the reality: transgender individuals are one of the groups most likely to be sexually assaulted. The most recent statistics report that about 50% experience at least one sexual assault or one instance of sexual abuse in his or her lifetime. This rate is even higher for transgender people of color, transgender people with disabilities, and transgender youth (in other words, populations that are double minorities)  (source). And what is one location in which these assaults occur?

Bathrooms.

Why are we not equally concerned with the safety of transgender people in the bathroom? I understand the protective instinct toward one's children and loved ones. However, surveys consistently show that LGBTQ people experience sexual assault at much higher rates than children and straight women. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. I am saying that we should be just as concerned for the safety of populations who are at increased risk for violence. "Bathroom legislation" forces transgender individuals to use a facility where they are not necessarily welcomed by other users. In fact, this sort of legislation may even cause increased panic, as people who appear outwardly to be men are forced to use the women's bathroom because they have a vagina. It's even more dangerous in reverse: a person who looks like a woman outwardly is, by the sole criterion of having a penis, forced to use the men's bathroom. Historically, men have not reacted well to other men dressed as women and/or acting like women. Many perpetrators use that premise as an excuse for assaulting a transgender woman - "He was dressed like a woman, he was asking for it," "He's confused and I set him straight," etc.

Now, some groups have advocated for the creation of single-stall "trans-friendly" bathrooms for transgender people to use in public places like schools, offices, sporting arenas, etc. On its face, this seems reasonable. Special bathrooms would give transgender people a bathroom to use where they can feel safe and where cisgender people (those whose anatomy matches their gender) can be assured of the continued sanctity of their men's and women's bathrooms.

Think about it a little more, though. White lawmakers in the pre-Civil Rights Era made the same argument for 'colored bathrooms' and segregated, 'separate but equal' schools. Their attitude was the same: Blacks now have their own set of facilities where they can be with people like them, and Whites will not have to fear for their own safety.

Single-stall bathrooms rob transgender individuals of their gender identity. Single-stall bathrooms say, "You don't know what your gender is, so you have to use this gender-irrelevant bathroom." Let me be clear - transgender people have a gender. They are not somewhere in between male and female while being fully neither. You're thinking of gender-fluid. A common experience for a transgender person is to feel betrayed by his or own body. A boy 'on the inside' will feel betrayed by a body that develops breasts and hips. A girl 'on the inside' will feel betrayed by a body that won't stop growing hair and a voice that sounds so different from her inner voice. For these people, the physical sex organ does not define their gender. And really, cisgender people don't form their gender identity solely by their physical parts either - factors like feelings, interests, and perceptions contribute to gender identity too. Why, then, do we force transgender people to determine their gender identity solely on the basis of their physical parts?

Let's talk about perpetrators of sexual crimes. The biggest fear in this hysteria around bathroom laws is that child molesters will be allowed access to our children. However, 86% of child sexual abuse victims know their abuser (source). In addition, 80% child sexual assaults occurs at the home of the victim, the abuser, or another familiar home setting (source). A child is far more likely to be abused by a family member, a teacher, coach, religious leader, or even another kid, than by a stranger. Again, I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. The unfortunate truth, though, is that abuse and assault happens overwhelmingly in familiar settings at the hands of someone known to the victim. It would stand to reason, then, that we should be just as concerned (or more so) with teaching our kids about boundaries, appropriate vs. inappropriate ways to show affection, and how to ask for help.

And what about our young sons who use the men's room alongside adult men? These are theoretically some of the same men who would try to access the women's bathroom by claiming to be transgender. Pedophiles target boys, too, and boys are significantly less likely to report the abuse. But why are we not just as outraged that it is legal for men who could be pedophiles to use the same bathrooms as young boys? Given that only 20% of abuse occurs in locations other than residences, with schools and religious centers being the most common in that 20%, what reason do we have to be terrified that non-discrimination policies for public bathrooms would cause child molesters to come out en masse to target little girls in the women's bathroom?

Here's a revolutionary idea - sexual abuse and assault is not the problem. It is a problem, without a doubt, but it's also a symptom of a much larger problem: a culture in which violence against women is widespread yet unacknowledged, and where victims (not the abusers) are held responsible for the assaults due to their actions, inactions, clothing choices, or lifestyles. Society puts so much emphasis on telling victims, "don't get raped," when we should be telling perpetrators "don't rape." But it never goes that way, does it? The recent bathroom hysteria is a prime example - conservative lawmakers restrict the rights of transgender people under the pretense of protecting women and girls from being assaulted. I don't hear them nearly as upset about the people who are doing the assaulting. It reminds me a bit of their argument against gun control - violence is going to happen anyway, might as well make it easier for people to protect themselves. That's fine, but why can't we also make an effort to curtail (or even stop) the violence itself, especially when the efforts at 'protection' of one group come at the expense of the protection of another group?

If you take away only one thing from this piece, let it be this - bathroom laws do far more harm than good. Everyone has the right to not be assaulted in the bathroom. Everyone also has the right to feel safe in the bathroom, including transgender individuals. Forcing everyone to use the bathroom that corresponds to their anatomy forces transgender people to use facilities with members of the opposite gender. Ironically, this is the same occurrence that many conservatives claim would happen in the absence of bathroom laws.

It simply goes to show that some people still seem to deserve more rights than others in this country.

Op-Ed: For all of the Obamacare Haters

You know what boils my blood?

Hearing all of the GOP presidential candidate frontrunners vowing to repeal Obamacare once they are in office.

To me, this is purely an "us vs. them" move. Conservatives vs. Liberals. Is it just a matter of jealousy? Is the GOP jealous that a Democrat president beat them to the implementation of a wildly successful nationwide healthcare access program? Is this why Congressional Republicans have voted over SIXTY TIMES to repeal the Affordable Care Act? Quite honestly, the jealousy angle is the only thing that makes sense to me. However, I have yet to hear a candidate propose a replacement plan for Obamacare.

I would hate to think that the alternative is true: that GOP candidates want to take health insurance away from the people who most need it, people who HAVE it now under the Affordable Care Act. They claim that they want to repeal Obamacare as an act of "liberty," a return to American "freedom," a fight against government control in our lives. But here's the thing - most of the people complaining about the infringement on their rights DON'T EVEN HAVE TO RELY ON OBAMACARE. Sure, they can paint it as 'sticking up for the little guy,' but I'm pretty sure the 'little guys' here are enjoying their access to affordable healthcare.

Perhaps a look at some common GOP-propagated myths will help us understand this insanity.

Myth #1: Obamacare is socialized medicine.
Not quite - it is a product of socialism, in the sense that everyone has access to it, but it is not funded solely by the government, the way socialized medicine is. Families and individuals with incomes in a certain range may qualify for a yearly tax credit to offset the cost of the health insurance plans available in the Marketplace. The tax credit comes from government funds, but it's the same idea as income tax refunds - and last I heard, the GOP is not against tax refunds.

Myth #2: Obamacare is a significant violation of your rights. 
The right to go uninsured and pay out of pocket for all health-related costs? Yes. The right to die from a treatable condition because you couldn't afford the treatment? Sure. Other than that, your rights are fine. You can even retain your right to not participate in universal healthcare for a small fee. But honestly, why would you want to NOT have health insurance? I don't understand how this argument is working for the GOP candidates.

Myth #3: Obamacare is Big Government's way of controlling your healthcare decisions.
Only insofar as the decision of whether to have health insurance. And again, you can pay the yearly fine to be uninsured. The pundits make it sound like Obamacare is a dictator's dream: control who can access what, control what healthcare everyone gets, control everything related to your health.
Here's how the Marketplace actually works: you create an account with basic information about yourself, your income, your pre-existing health conditions, and your household living situation. And if this sounds like Big Brother, just remember that the NSA can collect more information on you through your phone and internet usage in ten minutes than is contained in your Marketplace application. Plus, HIPAA protections are still a thing. Relax. Based on your answers, particularly the ones about your income and the number of people in your household, either your application will go to your State Department of Health to determine Medicaid/Medicare eligibility, or you will be sent on to the actual Marketplace, where you can peruse health plans available in your state. You can see who the providers are, what the plan's yearly deductible and monthly premiums cost, what the plan covers, what the plan doesn't cover, and links to more information from the provider's website. Let me say this clearly: YOU GET TO PICK THE PLAN YOU WANT HERE. You are not assigned to a plan; you get to see all the options, not just the ones the site thinks you can afford; and none of the plans is provided by the federal government. In fact, since the providers are private companies, the Marketplace is a great example of the free market at work - several companies competing to be your health insurance provider, meaning that they are each trying to offer their services at a price that is just a little bit lower than the other companies' prices! How does the GOP not want this shining beacon of capitalism preserved?
Now, if you're bounced to the Medicaid route, then yes - in a sense, your healthcare decision has been controlled by the government. But even within Medicaid, there is a choice of providers (in Michigan, at least, which is the state I live in). In fact, I think I had a choice of 5 different providers when it came to my application. If you don't choose a plan, the state will choose one for you, but that doesn't mean you have to use it. Plus, you can appeal the decision that bounced you to Medicaid, and then you pay that yearly fine to go without insurance.
For most people, their employer has more control over their health insurance than the government does. the Marketplace is designed for people who are unemployed, who don't get health benefits through their job, or who opt out of employee health benefits. It's likely that your employer offers fewer options than the Marketplace does.

Myth #4: Obamacare is destroying the economy.
The economy is a complicated monster, but here's a basic rebuttal to this "economy destruction" claim. If people have affordable healthcare, they don't have to spend as much of their income on doctor visits, prescriptions, treatments, counseling, etc. If they are saving money in this area, they can spend it in other areas, like food, housing, clothing, family life, transportation, or, best of all, entertainment and material possessions. This will cause an increase in demand, which will encourage an increase in supply, and through some voodoo magic, a revitalized economy.
Here's another approach: if people can afford to meet their healthcare needs, they will be more healthy (imagine that). If they are healthy, they can go to work regularly and enjoy a high rate of productivity. From what I've heard, a strong economy needs consistent productivity, not flash-in-the-pan ventures. If people can generally rely on a steady job, steady economy, and steady access to basic need fulfillment, their stress levels go down. When stress goes down, mental and physical health goes up. And healthy people go to work.

Myth #5: Obamacare is just another program that we don't need and can't afford.
And a corollary - Obamacare is going to cost way more than Obama says. Here's what's happened instead: almost 30 million people have obtained insurance since 2013 thanks to the Affordable Care Act. That's people who weren't insured before, not people who have switched to Obamacare offers. Put another way, 18% of adults in this country didn't have insurance in 2013. Now, that rate is down to 12.3%. Repealing the ACA will put 30 million people back where we started, possibly even more people than that, based on GOP promises to make drastic cuts. Can you honestly get behind a candidate that wants to ruin people's lives like that?
As for the overall cost of Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that federal subsidies (those tax credits I talked about earlier) will cost $208 billion less than projected initially. That's billion with a B. That surplus will go to cover deficits in other areas of the national budget. But, then again, Republican presidents seem to be more comfortable with budget deficits.

Myth #6: "Illegal immigrants are going to pour into this country now that they can get free healthcare."
Where to begin on this one...first of all, UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS is the appropriate term. Second, undocumented persons cannot apply for Medicaid or Marketplace plans because a social security number is required. The ACA doesn't provide free healthCARE to anyone, only free health insurance coverage. And only in very specific circumstances. Most people still have some premium costs or pay-sharing programs to contribute to. Emergency rooms are still required to provide emergency care to everyone, including undocumented immigrants, but that law was in place way before the ACA was passed.

I'm now tired of debunking myths. Let's switch to some facts, peppered with personal anecdotes and impassioned pleas for sanity.

1. The ACA made it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. This meant that if a company found out that you had, say, depression, they could deny your application because it would cost them more to insure you than it would cost to insure someone without depression. This sort of discrimination is what caused so many people to be uninsured. It could have caused me to be uninsured. Now, people don't have to worry about that when applying.
2. The ACA allows parents to keep their kids on their insurance plan until they turn 26. Personal anecdote time: I turned 26 last October and I was not looking forward to it because I knew it would mean that I'd lose my dad's primo health insurance. That policy covered almost everything; most notably, unlimited counseling, physical therapy for vertigo, and incredibly dental services. The previous age was 22, I think, and I am so thankful that the age was raised to 26. I used more health services between ages 22 and 26 than I used in the previous twenty-two years combined. I wear glasses ($250 per pair), I take two prescriptions every day (almost $100/month for both in addition to the 15-minute psychiatrist visits 4 times per year to get the prescription) plus a number of over-the-counter supplements, I see my therapist once a week ($140/session), and I've had two episodes of disabling vertigo in the last year (I don't know what the physical therapy treatments cost). With five of us contributing to the yearly deductible, I didn't even have to make co-payments after, like, February every year. I miss that insurance so much.
3. The ACA is improving people's lives, if not completely saving them. One example - my mom is a physical therapist's assistant and her company has seen its number of clients soar because of the Medicaid expansion. And this is not just clients who want a massage, or are rehabbing a sports injury. These are people who are chronically unemployed because of chronic pain from a decades-old injury. These are people who have been injured on the job and worker's comp didn't cover their needs. These are people whose every last dime goes toward food, clothing, housing, and childcare, and who never dared dream that PT was within their reach. Can you really tell me that it is in our nation's best interest to keep "the least of these" trampled under our feet? Where is the Christian family value in that?
4. The ACA indirectly lightens the burden on community agencies that provide healthcare. This year, I'm working at a school that serves a high percentage of low-income families. We're talking Free and Reduced Lunch Program participation at 85% of students. Cherry Street Health Services provides free vision and dental check-ups every year to students who qualify for them. The dentists were at our school right before Christmas break and I made small talk with one of the dentists while I waited for a student I was working with. She told me that the number of students they've seen in schools has been declining in the last few years. I asked if this was a good thing or a bad thing, and she said that the decline was the result of increased access to Medicaid and Obamacare. This meant fewer free check-ups to provide, lowered stress levels for clinicians who were serving a population that just kept growing, and less strain on the budget for providing services to uninsured clients. So yeah...fewer student participants was a great thing.
5. The ACA represents a move forward for the United States. All this GOP talk about "restoring America's glory" and "making America great again" generally makes me roll my eyes because the ACA is a piece of legislation that caught the US up to other developed nations. Access to universal healthcare overwhelmingly raises the standard of living, longevity, emotional health, and prosperity of a nation's people. Why would the GOP not want this?! How does the GOP propose to "make America great again" if they're champing at the bit to cut off access to health insurance for 30 million of their own citizens? Does this party really represent the interests of our people?

By way of conclusion, a personal plea - please don't vote for any GOP candidate who promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The ACA has saved my life - from the extra four years on my dad's insurance to the expanded Medicaid access that I use now until I land a career job. The ACA has allowed me to attend over 150 therapy sessions for free in the last 3 years. The ACA provided me with physical therapy for vertigo, enabling me to return quickly to work and school. The ACA allowed me to put my money toward graduate school and training for a career that I absolutely love, instead of having to spend it on healthcare. Most of all, the care I've received under the ACA has kept me from giving in to depression, a condition which has tried to knock me out every day.

Please don't put anyone in office whose platform is to ruin my life and the lives of 29,999,999 other Americans. 

Friday Mourning

Have you ever seen a heart at the moment it breaks?

I have.

On Friday morning, I saw twenty-five little seventh grade hearts break simultaneously. I stood in their classroom and watched their faces as our principal delivered the news that their beloved teacher had passed away the night before. Every teacher with a first-hour class had the wrenching task of delivering this news.

Some kids started to cry right away.

Some hid their faces in their coats and sweatshirts, or put their heads down on their desks.

Some had questions but couldn't make the words come out.

Some were simply blank. Blank faces, blank eyes, blank minds.

I don't even know what Jon said after that because, quite frankly, I wasn't listening anymore. Most of it was lost in that horrible halting voice that happens when you're trying to keep it together. I was still one of the blank ones, and I had already had an hour to begin digesting the news - Abbey Czarniecki, one of our science teachers for 7th and 8th grade, died very suddenly late on Thursday night because of an undiagnosed malignant brain tumor. I'm fuzzy on the details, and at this point I don't want to ask. Let's just say that this was never in anyone's realm of possibility.

The starkest moment of our new reality came between first and second hours, when the kids were moving from one class to another. The silence was terrifying. Anyone who has spent any amount of time in a middle school will know just how loud students can get. Screaming, screeching, slamming, yelling, cackling, and crashing are routine sounds. On Friday, few were talking. Few were laughing. Few were looking somewhere other than at the ground or at the person ahead of them. It was so out of the ordinary as to be deeply upsetting.

-----

As a school counselor intern at Wyoming Junior HS this year, I find myself in a unique position. I am only required to log 20-25 hours per week at the school in order to keep up with the total number of hours I have to complete by the end of the year. However, I've been working more or less full-time since the school year started. At first, I told people that it was because I wanted to get the full effect of working full-time as a counselor and to get ahead on hours in case I got really sick and missed a week or something.

But you know what? I'm beginning to think that there was a different reason for me to be there every day.

I am part of the Wyoming community this year. I am a fairly permanent fixture in the counseling office. The kids see me every day and know what I do there and they know where to find me if they need me. They know that I keep regular hours and that I can be depended upon to be available for them.

If I had put in only the minimum number of hours each work and chosen to work another part-time job, I wouldn't have nearly the understanding and love for this community that I have now.

I wouldn't know which teachers have been most torn apart by Abbey's death.
I wouldn't know which students have been hit hardest by their first close-up experience with death.
I wouldn't understand the effect of losing a colleague with whom you have worked for a decade and a half, as many of the WJHS staff are experiencing this weekend.
I wouldn't know which students were her basketball players, kids who have lost a coach in addition to a teacher.
Most of all, I wouldn't be tapped in so deeply to the communal grief taking place this weekend.

My individual grief is shallow - I didn't know Abbey beyond her roles as science teacher and coach. This weekend, other little tidbits have surfaced, isolated memories I have of Abbey, like the time she asked if I could switch a student out of her 3rd hour because he was driving her bonkers in exchange for a student that was driving another teacher bonkers. Or the time when I was first introduced to her and she told me that I had a picked a wacky place to work but I would come to love it in no time. (She was right, by the way).

These are small, almost inconsequential memories, and they are what I have.

For me, the communal grief is far more painful, like the moments when you have to see other people in pain. It's really hard to watch co-workers grieve, especially the ones I've had the most contact with and know better than I know others. It's really hard to watch them struck by a memory or a feeling or an image, something that only they can see, and then watch them try to keep their composure.

It's nearly impossible to watch my students grieve because I don't want them to have to know this feeling so early in their lives. They are not equipped yet to handle conflicting emotions - sadness over never seeing her again, fear that it could happen to anyone else, relief that she didn't suffer for very long, guilt about not saying hi to her in the hallway the day before, or about not feeling sad the way everyone else seems to be feeling, happiness over a particularly good memory of her class, shock and dizziness every time the grief train comes hurtling back...

School tomorrow will be hard. The funeral on Tuesday will be even harder. It feels like too much sometimes. No, a lot of the time. But I wouldn't dare stay home. This is the kind of grief you have to do together.

Op-Ed: Why I Can't Completely Get Behind the #PrayforParis Movement

As you probably know by now, a series of explosions, shootings, hostage situations, and general mayhem occurred in Paris last Friday. Authorities have identified 129 deaths, and some 500 more with injuries. ISIS took responsibility for this coordinated effort amidst the chaos and confusion of rescue and President Hollande's declaration of a state of emergency. On social media, #prayforparis began to trend, Facebook users put a red/white/blue tint in the style of the French flag on their profile pictures to reflect their support, and hundreds of thousands of statements of prayer and solidarity erupted across many social media platforms.

You can probably guess that in the wake of ISIS's proud claim of responsibility, people got really upset and began to decry Islam as a religion of violence and terrorism. I even saw some Facebook posts pleading with God to guide the bombs dropped by France over ISIS training compounds, praying that they would hit their targets and wipe out all the Muslims.

Really?!

Are we really asking God to destroy an entire population (a population which numbers about 1.6 billion, by the way) based on the actions of one political extremist group? Are we really asking God to wipe out 1.6 billion human beings who He created in His image and has plans for? How is our blatant hatred of Muslims any better than ISIS's blatant hatred for the Western world?

Here are a few reasons that I can't fully support this #prayforparis movement.

1. Paris was not the only city devastated on November 13, 2015.

The western coast of Japan was rocked by a 7.0 earthquake.
Mexico had also been suffering earthquakes, registering about 4.3 and continuing for several days.
A suicide bomber in Baghdad targeted a funeral, killing 21 people and injuring 46 more.
Two suicide bombers in Lebanon killed 43 people and injured about 200 more. Exact numbers are not yet known because of the chaos in that area.
A suicide bomber belonging to ISIS killed 43 people in Beirut, Lebanon, and the number of injured is still unknown.

Some people caught on to this parade of devastation, sparking the hashtags #prayformexico, #prayforbeirut, etc., but the warcry against Islam was much louder. National landmarks across the world were lit with red, white, and blue lights to show support for France. Did anyone light up with colors for Japan, Mexico, Lebanon, or Iraq? If they have, it hasn't been publicized, which is a shame in itself.

I simply can't get on board with a campaign that supports so publicly one set of victims and remains silent on victims around the world. ISIS carries out acts of terror daily in the Middle East. Thousands have been killed by ISIS since the group first rose to power. Thousands. Why are we not outraged by that? Why are we not sending money and aid to their families? Why are we not coordinating efforts through social media to spread the word about safe places to stay and be taken care of? Why are we accepting only refugees who are skilled and educated (and, it needs to be said, wealthy) to our country?

Don't get me wrong. I am disgusted by ISIS's actions in Paris. I think we need to be more disgusted by what they're doing elsewhere on a much more regular basis.

2. There is implicit hatred for Muslims that hides behind innocent hashtags.

Let me reiterate: not everyone who uses #prayforparis also spouts islamophobic vitriol. I would argue that most don't outright hate Muslims, either. We have here a classic example of a few people ruining the whole batch, so to speak. We become lumped with the haters. The problem is that not enough of us are combating the anti-Islam rhetoric. Many of us stay silent, which is not the same thing as setting the record straight. I want to set the record straight:

The religion of Islam as a whole is not responsible for this past weekend's attacks in Paris, Beirut, Lebanon, and Baghdad. 

In another example of "some ruining it for everyone," 1.6 billion Muslims are being painted as terrorists by the media, social media, and, I hate to say it, some Christians, all because of the actions of a political group styling itself as Islamic. Many people refuse to see the difference between Muslims and ISIS. Is it any wonder, when you consider the United States' history with the Middle East? Back in 2001, President Bush blamed the 9/11 acts of terrorism on Muslims, when, once again, preliminary evidence pointed to religious and political extremists. The terms "Arab" and "Middle-Eastern" became synonymous with "Muslim." The term "Muslim" became synonymous with "terrorist." Men and women who looked even remotely Middle-Eastern were rounded up en masse under suspicion of terrorist affiliation. The President says it was for national security, but let's be honest - detaining people based on their appearance and/or religion, holding them without criminal charges, denying their rights to legal representation, and playing fast and loose with their human rights? What does that sound like to you?

I saw a post on Facebook this morning that stated it really well - "If we can distinguish between Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, and the average American Christian, we should have no trouble distinguishing between ISIS and the average Muslim." It's the same concept, folks.

3. We only seem to care when it affects people who are like us. 

That's a rather simplistic way of stating it, but it goes back to the point I made about us not being outraged about ISIS targeting Muslims. ISIS activity only seems to become international news when it involves people who are white, or share a similar culture to ours, or practice a similar religion to ours, or share the same values as ours. Case in point - Paris attacks become international news shortly after they happen, but the bombings in Beirut that began two days earlier go unpublicized. Two people from the United States were killed in the Paris bombings, and the story goes viral. No United Statesians killed in Beirut; therefore, no outrage.

Why is this? I think the media is partly to blame, since they are of course going to cover the stories that will cause the biggest splash and make the most money for them. They know that lots of people have visited Paris (or at least really want to visit), and that most people don't know where Beirut is. Confession: I had to Google it. Learned Beirut is a city in Lebanon. I'd heard of Beirut before, but couldn't have told you where it was. The media plays on that. Paris is far more relatable to the average United Statesian, so Paris gets the coverage.

We can't blame it all on the media, though. We must shoulder this blame too. We have to figure out how to advocate for people who don't share our beliefs, culture, or value. We have to learn to recognize stereotypes and actively combat them. We have to learn to differentiate; to not take the actions and beliefs of an individual and apply them to the entire group. We have to stop promoting violence against our enemies in one breath and in the next breath condemning those who take violence against us. Violence is violence is violence, regardless of in whose name the violence is committed.

If we want the world to follow our example, we have to set a better example. 

In Which I (possibly) Become a Guinea Pig

Hello, friends.

About a week ago, I was at the Christian Counseling Center for my weekly session with Sherry. Next to a stack of magazines, there was a new notice:

"Pine Rest is sponsoring a clinical research study for clients who have a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and who have not experienced relief through medication or therapy. Research is now being conducted to examine the efficacy and safety of Sirukumab, which is also being studied as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. If you have any questions or have interest in participating in this study, please call our research coordinator at (phone number)."

(That's the gist of what the notice said. It was a lot longer and had a lot more description and screening information. I would have wasted both my time and yours in retyping all of it.)

I mulled that study description over in my head for a week. What I should have done was asked Sherry about it right away at our session, since I had just read it and it piqued my interest. I had always thought that my diagnosis was more along the lines of Persistent Despressive Disorder instead of MDD, though, so it didn't cross my mind to ask her about the study.

Over the weekend, I kept thinking about it and I did some of my own research. What was Sirukumab? Where else was this study being conducted? Is this drug approved and safe and legit? Could I maybe get paid if I qualify to participate? Would I have to stop going to therapy? Thank goodness this sort of activity is all federally regulated and monitored, so there is an entire .gov website devoted to clinical trials happening in the US. I'll get into what the study is all about in just a little bit.

During the following week, I corresponded with the research coordinator at Pine Rest to tell her that I was interested and to ask for some more information to see if I qualify. I opted to do some pre-screening questions over the phone, but we couldn't get a solid half-hour on the phone til Friday because I had parent-teacher conferences and professional development during the second half of the week. Plus, I wanted to bring it up to Sherry before making any appointments. On Thursday, I had counseling again, so I got some more information and signed a consent form to be contacted about participation (just in case, I think, since I had already been in contact with the coordinator).

Then on Friday, after PD and some lengthy conversations with parents, I was able to get on the horn with Pine Rest for the pre-screening. She asked me a bunch of questions about my health, my age, my depression symptoms, comorbid conditions (i.e., my anxiety), and logistics of participating for the full six months the study would require (i.e., could I come to Pine Rest's main campus for appointments, could I take off of work if needed to accommodate appointments that might last up to five hours, would I be living in the area for the next six months, etc.). After answering all of her questions, she told me that as of right now, I seem to be a great candidate for this study. The only concern is whether my depression is "severe" enough. Anyone reading this who has depression will understand why I put that in quotation marks - one's experience of depression (and its severity) will fluctuate from day to day or season to season. In my case, the question is whether I am currently in a "major depressive episode." As in, is my depression worse right now than my baseline depression? Honestly, I couldn't begin to tell you, since what on earth is my baseline for depression? It's not "no depression symptoms present," since I haven't experienced that since I was 18. And if history is any indicator, my "major depressive episodes" tend to coincide with fall and winter, which means that I may be (and definitely probably am) heading into one right now. Plus, how are we gauging my symptoms? Symptoms with antidepressants + therapy? Symptoms with antidepressants without therapy? Symptoms with neither? It's too hard to evaluate myself on those terms since I've taken meds nonstop for four years and gone to therapy every week for three years.

Do you see why it takes so long for new treatments to hit the market?

Anyway, I will go to the study clinic on Thursday morning for official screening and, if all goes well, the initial contact session. Here's what the study entails, and some Research Methods 101 for those of you who are not familiar with how this sort of thing works:

 - Participants will receive either an injection of Sirukumab, the treatment under investigation, or an injection of placebo (so that the doctors can determine if there is any clear benefit experienced by the people getting the Sirukumab). The participants won't know which injection they get, and neither will the study doctors, so that the results will be as free as possible from bias and unconscious interpretation. In studying a condition like depression, this is extra extra super extra important, as reporting of symptoms is entirely subjective - there's no blood test or exam to determine if my "level of depression" has gone down. If I think I'm getting the Sirukumab, I may unconsciously skew my reporting of symptoms by describing them as less severe than they may actually be. In other words, I may want so badly for this drug to work that I try to prove to myself and the clinicians that it is working. I'm hoping that my background understanding of research and my long-term experience of depression will help me to evaluate my symptoms accurately.

- Participants will get bloodwork done on a regular basis to see if the Sirukumab is having an effect on the thing they want it to have an effect on. From what I understand, Sirukumab works like an anti-inflammatory drug - something is signalling the body's immune (?) system to have a certain response, indicated by inflammation. And we're talking inflammation on a cellular level, not like inflammation of the lips or ankles. If only it were that visible. Introducing an anti-inflammatory tells the system to cool it, stop inflaming, nothing to see here. Sirukumab was first developed as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, which is all about inflammation, but research conducted recently claims to show a link between inflammation markers in the blood and experience of symptoms of depression. That is, the more "severe" the depression, the more likely it is that the person also has high levels of these markers. This study is meant to explore this link and see if an anti-inflammatory that is specifically designed to cooperate with antidepressants (many AIs are not) will lessen the severity of depression symptoms. Antidepressants have no effect on inflammation, so a positive outcome from this study could revolutionize the treatment of long-term depression (like I have) that doesn't go away with just antidepressants.

- Participants get three injections over 12 weeks, with appointments in between the injections as well, and then there are 5 or 6 appointments over 14 weeks after the set of injections is completed. This is probably to gauge response to the injection over time. To compensate for all the driving and time spent in the clinic, participants get a $50 Meijer card for every appointment completed. Lucky for me, I live in the Grand Rapids area and Pine Rest is not that far away from me. BLAMMO.

I really really really really hope that they will select me to participate in this. It's fascinating to me. While I have (more or less) come to terms with the idea that my depression may be a lifelong struggle, I still hold my candle of hope that new discoveries will be made that lessen the symptoms and severity of depression. This sounds like it could do that, since it's an entirely different direction for research of depression treatment. I honestly don't even care if I get the placebo. I just want to be a part of something like this. I want to put my depression to work for me, instead of working against me, like it seems to do a lot of the time. If it works and becomes a thing, I think it would be so cool to be able to say down the line, "hey, I was part of the clinical trials for that drug!"

This is going to sound like a very bizarre request, but would you all pray that my depression meets the criteria for "severity"? Odd, I know, to pray that a disease is bad enough instead of praying for it to get better. I just hope that I can convey to the interviewer that mine is the depression they are looking for - it may not prevent me from going to work or class or getting things done, but it is still with me every single day, in spite of meds and therapy. In fact, I think it would be a LOT worse without therapy. Maybe they can use my description of how I felt before starting therapy. Compared to now, that was pretty severe.

Hopefully, I will be able to tell you all on Thursday afternoon that I was accepted to the study! Until then, more middle school drama and joys of adolescence. I'll have to write about that sometime. That could keep me busy writing for weeks.

Op-Ed: A Dollar Sign on Every Forehead

Can we talk about Count Day for a few minutes? Until this year, I had never experienced fall Count Day because Christian schools don’t have to do it and my student teaching at Grandville was during the spring. Count Day is the first Wednesday in October and the number of students that attend school on Count Day translates directly into funding from the state. In fact, Count Day numbers are responsible for 90% of the school’s annual funding. NINETY PERCENT.

On Count Day, every single student has an imaginary dollar sign on his or her forehead. Or, more accurately, 7,500 of them.

That’s right - students in many Michigan school districts are worth about seventy-five hundred bucks on Count Day. If a student doesn’t come to school on Count Day, he or she doesn’t count toward the school’s enrollment for the year, and since funding is based on enrollment, the school loses money for that student, even though the student probably comes to school most of the time. You can probably imagine what a problem this causes for school districts.

Count Day becomes a game - incentives for attendance on this day are offered in elementary schools, like getting to wear your PJs to school, or having your teacher do something fun and crazy if everyone comes to school, or ice cream sundaes at the end of the day for everyone who was at school all day. Middle- and high school teachers remind students for several days leading up to Count Day about how important it is for them to come to school so that the government will give the school money to spend on their education. Administrators get pretty peeved when a student enrolls the day after Count because they won’t get any state funding for the student because he or she wasn’t at the school the day before, even though they will likely be enrolled for the next eight months.

But incentives and promise of rewards don’t always get teenagers to come to school. At their age, most students could care less about helping their school get the money it needs to teach them. Schools that could really use the extra funding pull out all the stops on Count Day: they arrange robocalls on Tuesday night to students who have a tendency toward absence and tardiness, secretaries put together the master list of students who are absent for Count and organize them by the neighborhood they live in, administrators and teachers who have first or second hour prep periods divide the list up and go to students’ houses to pick them up and bring them to school. I’m not even kidding. The stakes are that high - if each student is worth about seven grand, aren’t you going to do everything you can to put them in school on Count Day?

Some school districts are so desperate for funding that they put suspensions on hold - students who are suspended in-house get to go to class, and students who are out of school for suspension get to come back to school for just that one day. Teachers are strongly discouraged from sending kids to the principal or to in-school holding because their presence in class translates to thousands of dollars, even if the student in question is derailing the whole class. Some teachers even have to assume that the day is going to be a wash - if they make some progress on a lesson plan, great, but if they don’t, it’s because the money is more important and they just have to deal with the troublemakers being back in class.

What message does this send to our students? Students even as young as middle schoolers know what’s going on - they know that on Count Day, we don’t promote attendance simply for the sake of attendance and doing well in school. They know that as much as we don’t want to, we see them with dollar signs on their foreheads on the first Wednesday of every October. We can dress it up with incentives and school spirit and enthusiasm for learning, but underneath, we know that the system is so messed up and we just have to deal with it for what it is.

On the surface, it makes sense that the state government would base funding of schools on how many students it serves. The more students a school has, the more money it will need to pay for educational materials, teachers, parapros, support staff, food, building upkeep, etc. This system breaks down, though, when it comes to the actual implementation: to base funding on the attendance numbers of one single school day raises the stakes so high that some schools have to shift their focus from education and achievement and making a better life, which is what we’re at school for in the first place, to what is really pulling all of our strings: cold, hard cash.

This system uniquely punishes schools with high enrollment in low- or low-middle income areas. The more students there are, the more money the school will need to do educate them effectively. On the flip side, where there are more students, there are higher numbers of absences and truancy. Unfortunately, where there are more students, there are not always more educators. Large schools are already stretched for personnel, which makes the annual funding that much more important. Schools can’t (and shouldn’t have to) dispatch employees to go and pick up missing students, even for Count, just to get the money they need to educate these students the rest of the year. School should be about education, not about jumping through hoops and having to play a sinister zero-sum game.

Public schools are not in the business of making money, yet the State treats education as a business. Its policies reward the districts that are already doing well and punishes the districts that want to do well and could do well with the extra funding. Punishing the school by cutting its funding is not a simple “Well, you didn’t get your students’ tests scores up with the money we gave you, so we’re not going to give you as much as last year. It’s just not a smart investment for us.” Yet this is the mentality in the State legislatures. Cutting funding doesn’t just punish the educators by forcing them to do the same amount of work and achieve the same standard with less funding than before. It punishes the students who need education as their ticket out of the lives their parents are living. We say that to our kids all the time - education is your ticket out of here. But how can that be true if the State puts up all kinds of hoops and obstacles and contingencies?

Schools are not businesses from which to cut one’s losses. Funding should not be contingent on the attendance numbers of a single, isolated school day. What if we did Count Week instead? Students get sick. Students make appointments to see doctors. Parents can’t always be relied on to bring their students to school every day and on time. But does that make them less deserving of a well-funded and well-managed education? While it’s true that some administrators and educators don’t care enough about their job or their students to crusade so diligently for funding, most are not like this. The educators and administrators at my school, for example, fall into this latter category. You can tell by the way they conceptualize education - they educate the whole person, not just the content area they are responsible for. They are united in their commitment to lifelong literacy and learning. They communicate with colleagues and advocate for the needs of their students.

And then, when even their best efforts can’t get kids into school on Count Day, they are punished by being forced to do more with less.