Living for Two

By Lauren Spiro

This book is for those who savor the journey and are willing to put their lives under a microscope to explore how the pieces fit together. How do you come to define who you are? How do you fill the emptiness in your soul? How do you come to know who you were born to be? Have you lost someone to a violent death? Have you ever doubted your own intrinsic worth, felt crazy, or been labeled by the mental health system? Can you use a dose of meaning and purpose - because we live in a world that can be so unjustly harsh? If you can say yes to any of these questions, this book is for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490721873

Lauren Spiro

I am not the same person I was when I began writing this book. The process of writing in my journal, then expanding it into a book for family and friends, and finally evolving into a story others might find useful, has changed me. It's been a journey of personal transformation and healing beyond anything I ever imagined. The meaning of life derives from how we have come to interpret it based on our unique experiences. Do we notice them or do we focus instead on the destination - that future point in time? Do we stop and notice the slightly torn wing of a butterfly as it glides across our path? Writing this book has meant coming to a screeching halt, stopping suddenly in my path and taking time to re-examine, re-explore, re-feel, reconstruct and reframe the most difficult and painful period of my life, which took place between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. It has been a journey of thirty-three years to have the pieces of the puzzle come together. In my forty-seventh year, I looked at the details of my past. The young Lauren was there all along. I just hadn't noticed. She had waited for me to come back and get her. I missed her - but I didn't know it until I found her. Then I remembered. There was once a precious young person who had dreams. She struggled to understand the world around her but so much did not make sense. She couldn't separate truth from fiction, reality from pseudo-reality. Her heart was broken early, her spirit bruised, her vision blurred by tears and pain. Reaching for her was like cleaning out the basement and the attic, going through the cobwebs and closets, the dust and debris, everything knotted and tangled. There were layers of pain, misinformation, social conditioning, and oppression. This process involved getting back to that beautiful child and the purity and simplicity of her dreams. Reclaiming her.

Book preview

Copyright 2014 Lauren Spiro.

Cover painting by Lauren Spiro

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4120-8554-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-2187-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012916529

Trafford rev. 02/05/2014

www.trafford.com

North America & international

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Praise for Living for Two

Lauren Spiro tells a deeply personal story—of tragedy, spirit, renewal and courage. In opening her heart she illuminates a path that others may follow. Liberation is a key theme and it is demonstrated by how Lauren has used her experiences as the linchpin in her selfless commitment to other travelers.

- Patrick Sullivan, Ph.D., Professor,

Indiana University School of Social Work

"Lauren Spiro’s Living for Two: A Daughter’s Journey from Grief and Madness to Forgiveness and Peace provides a compelling account of the struggle to map the unfathomable territories that lie at extremes of human experience. Her recovery and transformation after senseless violence, profound loss, spiritual emergency and extreme mental states exemplify hope, resilience and post-traumatic growth. People in recovery, psychology and social work students, helping professionals, children of violence, and others will find this small volume worthwhile."

- Priscilla Ridgway, Ph.D., co-author,

Pathways to Recovery

"A beautiful story of liberation and growth, Living for Two eloquently expresses the path to forgiveness and offers the reader tools and inspiration to get there. Interspersed with dream-like color paintings and poetry, Lauren’s story blends her personal life history with accounts of the larger movement for mental health liberation. A revealing story that will help other survivors of loss and trauma find hope and possibilities."

- Cassandra Nudel, editor,

Firewalkers: Madness, Beauty & Mystery

"Lauren invites the reader to accompany her through experiences of devastating personal loss and abuse, and being further harmed by the mental health system. Lauren’s creativity, reflected in her prose, poetry, and painting, evoke insight and empathy in the reader. Living for Two takes its place in the literature of personal challenge and recovery, and the ensuing social activism they engender."

- Jonathan Finkelstein, Ph.D., Associate Dean,

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

A powerful story of a young woman’s experiences with trauma and her courage to reclaim a path of recovery and healing. This memoir should be read by all who work in the mental health field.

- Kevin Ann Huckshorn, Ph.D., R.N.,

State Director, Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, Delaware

Lauren’s story is as courageous as it is tender in her exploration of how our deepest losses shape the soul, how fear and misunderstanding can too easily silence it, and how love can give our souls voice again, no matter how long they have been silent. Lauren’s memoir invites us to consider whether there is any wound love cannot heal. A question we must answer with our own lives and hearts.

- Jennifer Maurer, Managing Director,

Mother Bear: Families for Mental Health

Ms. Spiro describes her journey through an extreme state to a full and rich life. She describes the failings and limitations of our traditional mental health system but this is a story of hope. Her suggested remedies are in essence neither complex nor technologically difficult and therefore they are options that should be easily accessible to all.

- Sandra Steingard, M.D.

Some of us speak for those who are gone, and those who can’t or don’t speak for themselves, writes Lauren Spiro in her brave new book. She is one of those people—using her voice and sharing her story to bring light and understanding to the subject of mental health recovery."

- Tamara Jeffries, Journalist

Powerfully written, this personal journey from loss and sadness to reclamation and healing is soul-redemptive and emotionally stirring. Thank you Lauren for being real, vulnerable, and sharing your story, which will ultimately empower others to share theirs.

- Amikaeyla, Singer, Songwriter and Executive Director,

The International Cultural Arts & Healing Sciences Institute

Contents

Praise for Living for Two

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

1. Unfathomable Pain

2. Discovery

3. Final Poems Emerge

4. Breakthrough

5. My Forty-Seventh Year Ends

6. Showing Myself

7. Searching

8. Forgiveness

9. The Wind at My Back

10. The Journey Continues

Epilogue

Useful Tools Along the Way

References

Acknowledgements

Dedication

My deepest thanks go to my parents, Lenny and Connie Spiro, and to my grandparents—Renee and Jack Friedlander, and Dorothy and Irving Spiro. Understanding the history of my family helps me put the puzzle pieces of my life story together.

My story is sweeter because of Lovey and Buddy Felprin, my parents’ best friends, who were a second set of parents for me. Buddy told me twenty-some years after my father’s death that he knew he would never have another friend like my father, that my father was the best friend a man could have.

This book is also dedicated to the brothers and sister of Sally Fricke Oesterling, Bill, Ned and Emily Fricke, all of whom died too young. Lastly, this story is for all who have suffered and died because of oppression: may their whispers be heard.

Foreword

Sometimes I feel adrift in a world that on one hand feels overwhelming, torn apart by pain, trauma, violence, and war, while on the other hand it feels so compelling because of people with extraordinary insight, compassion, dignity and fortitude whose feet are firmly grounded on this planet and who are building peace and community.

The world is changing so quickly these days, in a manner and with a pace unparalleled in the history of our existence. As we head to print, I ask myself, Why publish this book? What is its purpose, its significance?

A gentle wind at my back and under my wings tells me it is the right way to go. Life has a way of flowing, perfectly.

My story weaves together some threads of my life. One thread was an effort to share with my family and friends how deeply my father’s murder when I was a teenager has impacted my life. Another thread is sharing a glimpse of what it was like for me, as a young person, surviving a parent’s murder, followed by psychiatric institutionalization. That unraveling