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Grief, Loss, Tragedy and Community on the Internet
Panelinsts: Cecily Kellogg, Loralee Choate, Kim Trimble, Peter & Anissa Mayhew
Cecily: I guess we’ll all start out to
I was 23.5 weeks pregnant with twin boys when I was diagnosed with preeclamapsia, October 2004., I had already blogged through being infertile and blogged through that. Then the doctor came in and said if you don’t terminate this pregnancy, you will die.
Kim: My husband hit his head on a stool, said he was fine for 4 days, by the time I got home, he was in a coma. Took him to the hospital. Father died a few months later.
Loralee: In 2003 I had a beautiful little red-headed boy named Matthew and he died of SIDS. Spent some time trying to get my life together. Had a suicide attempt in 2005. I am here to talk about how our community helped picked me up;
Anissa: I’m not actually dead. I had a stroke in 2005 and then my youngest daughter had cancer in 2006 and we dealt with Leukemia In 2009, I had several more strokes. I’ve blogged the whole time and been fairly honest and upfront about what happened to us. Talked about everything from being sick to recovery.
Peter: I married Anissa. So when my wife had her 2nd and third strokes, there was a lot of chaos around what was going on. I needed an outlet of sorts. It got our family through a tough time early, and the thought was it was going to do it again this time. An amazing thing happened. People started reading it. When we first started blogging, after her coma, we averaged 50,000 hits a day, Can I get a show of hands of who broke my website when that happened? (Most of the room raises hands.)
Thank you. At my lowest moments, I would go and see that people in Africa are praying for us. I was never alone through this whole thing. Thank you so much, you gave me back my family.
Cecily: one of the worst things about grief is how isolating it is. Right away, you’re okay, people check and ask if you’re okay. But four weeks later, four years later… blogging saved my sanity. Did you find that blogging helped you after the initial crisis.
Kim: I wasn’t blogging about anything particular, just my dog, my socks. But when Gregory passed away. I was using Twitter. I laid in the hospital bed with him and Tweeted. It helped. It also helped because I don’t talk about it like this.
Peter: The bottom line is what is blogging, social media? It’s another form of communication. Your friends are your friends whether they live in your time
Cecily: When I was in the hospital and we still weren’t sure what was happening with the twins, my best friend printed out all the comments for me and brought them to me. And it was like someone pumped fresh air into the hospital
Anissa: When I came home form the hospital. I had literally like 12,000 emails and I was like “oh, Holy crap.” I backed away from the computer and said ‘I don’t even know what to do with that.” But it meant so much to start writing again. That was the darkest moment. Even though I can’t write like I used to, it was me and my voice.
Kim: I wasn’t blogging about it at the time. It was 2005 and I was in a van by the river and I remember watching. It’s as bad as you think it’s going to be times a million. When you’re suicidal, you’re not well, and my loss of my little boy just really broke me. I remember watching this bead of condensation go down the windshield and I had just chugged two bottles of lithium and a huge bottle of Xanax. It was just so lonely seeing this one drop of water go nowhere. I didn’t know a soul in the world. I firmly believe if I’d had this community of men and women and angels, even though God and I are in a big old fight. You are all angels. I do not think I would have been there if I had been in this community. I don’t think I would have fallen so low. I have to say think you for saving me.
Cecily: Wondered if any of you had made any major
