I've been following the search for Buffy all day via the many diaries that have made the rec list. I hope all of us have.
What we've seen here today, and many other times before, is what separates us from the right. And I want to tell you why. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but bear with me.
Five years ago this month, I'd reached the end of my rope. My circumstances were different than what Buffy's sound like, but the hopeless anxiety that went with my circumstances is probably very similar.
I was caught in an abusive marriage to an addict who couldn't hold a job. I was being manipulated by his family, told that counseling and medical intervention weren't necessary, but that my complacency and docility were. Every day was torture, and the only thing that kept my going was my very young child. But over time, even that relationship was undermined by constant accusations that I was a horrible mother.
When the end of the line came, I went to the grocery store and bought a large bottle of an OTC sleep aid. Instead of going to my weekly meditation class, I went into my office. It was a Saturday, and I felt sure no one would be there.
I sat at my desk and opened the bottle. I stared at it for a long time before I began to write a letter. I poured my heart out....the guilt, the despair, the loneliness. And then I realized that no one would want to read it anyway. So I crumpled up what I'd written and threw it in the shredding bin.
Somewhere deep inside me, I just couldn't do it. I'd sat there for at least a couple of hours, but I couldn't take that last step. I stood up, crying, and wandered through the maze of empty cubicles, utterly lost.
I finally turned at the end of the cube maze and began to make my way back to my desk, still hurting and broken, when I heard someone call my name. I turned around, and standing behind me was a coworker. Without saying anything, I pressed the unopened bottle of pills into her hand and begged her to help me.
She immediately got on the phone and called two other coworkers, who raced into the office that October Saturday afternoon. One asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. I said yes, and all three of them took me to the ER. I don't remember much after that, except that I went through a brief psychiatric triage evaluation. I was asked if I would voluntarily admit myself to a psychiatric hospital. I agreed.
I was there for three days. It wasn't until I was there that I realized that I'd been so badly abused through threats, intimidation, manipulation, and control that there was almost nothing of me left. I was a shell, but somewhere a little light was still shining.
When I got out, well, that's when things got really bad.
Unlike Buff, I still had a job. But my kid's father and family took everything else. I was thrown out of my home and denied visitation with my child. Our joint bank account was emptied and closed. I had to hole up wherever a friend would let me crash out. My former in-laws were "kind" enough to tell me they didn't think I should stay with MY friends and offered to get me vouchers for a homeless shelter.
After a year-long, $22K divorce and custody fight, I thought the nightmare was over. It wasn't. As many of you know, I'm one of the very few noncustodial mothers in this country, and a year after the divorce ended, my child moved three states away with his father. And damn it, I'm still fighting to see my child, to be involved in his life. And the fight is just as fucking hard as it was when I was penniless and homeless.
BUT....it was during that mess that I became a liberal. Before that I was a chest-thumping wingnut. And why the transformation?
Because I finally had learned what it meant to need other people. I finally learned that friends mean far more than family sometimes. I learned that public safety nets and social services serve EVERYONE, whether you started out rich and ended up poor or if you'd never had a dollar in your life.
Kossacks responded today to Buffy not only with compassion and empathy. Oh no. They cared about her, and they're STILL trying to find her before something dreadful happens so that they have the opportunity to keep her precious friendship. We have all reached out at one time or another, whether to house Katrina evacuees or help someone pay medical bills.
THAT is the message that won my heart all those years ago.
And to you Buffy, wherever you are, know that it takes strength above all else to ask for help and to accept it. I learned humility in my experience, and it taught me to appreciate each and every person in this world. We all go through bad shit, and none of us is ever alone.
We love you and pray for your safety. Be blessed and find strength.