I found that essay of Allison Crews' that I published five years ago (see post directly below). Reading it made me cry. I am still crying now.
I am pretty sure this is the first thing Alli ever had published. Remember, she was SEVENTEEN when she wrote this. She was tremendously talented. What a loss.
You can read it HERE.
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I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.
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8 comments:
yeah, an "excellent mother" who left her son a legacy of suicide. I say this as someone whose grandmother killed herself. my father is the one who found her. I think it is most likely a big chunk of why my father had such serious emotional problems as an adult. reading her essay all I could think was what an appalling lack of responsibility. it was as if she got pregnant the way someone might get injured by a hit and run driver. it just "happened". I didnt see any admission of "i messed up and got myself where I am now" nope, she's just a victim of circumstance. NOT. she did something she should not have done. when you wind up pregnant and single you have three sucky options. one is murder so doesnt even bear mention. however perhaps the availability of abortion has lulled young people into thinking that getting pregnant is no big and not perhaps a serious deterent to non marital sex. any way you slice it the kid gets screwed. either killed. or with adoption issues. or with single parent issues (I was raised by a single parent so I do know what I am talking about). so after we are treated to this whinefest about how this woman is SUCH a victim she goes and kills herself. brilliant. I will say that I think that no one should ever be coerced. this is where you get birth mothers changing thier minds (which IS a shitty thing to do to someone..even shittier when they take the kid home and then the BM takes the kid back months later....which is a reason a number of adoptive parents will adopt internationally rather than risk the whole birthmother fiasco happening to them). being coerced is where you get twenty year reuinions and the adoptive parents are just chopped liver now that the kid has reunited with thier "real" mother. make no mistake..I am not in favor of a market driven adoption industry: I am in favor of young kids being taught that they will not die if they dont have sex thereby avoiding whichever brand of pain they bring on themselves in dealing with thier unplanned pregnancy. but I am sorry. this girl is no victim, although she should not have been coerced. she DID bring her problems on herself and maybe her inability to own up to that fact and instead see everyone else as victimizing her may have contributed. the answer to the whole teen mom situation isnt adoption and it isnt raising your baby alone (or having a shotgun wedding) and it isnt abortion. it is saying "no" to premarital sex.
You should be ashamed.
And you won't even sign your name to this stuff.
Alli Crews always signed her name. She was never ashamed.
I hope that depression never takes someone you love, but if it does, perhaps you will be less judgmental.
Shame on you.
-Katie Allison Granju
yeah, she was selfish. because when you think about it, suicide is the ultimate in selfishness. I can just see it being glamorized and her made out to be some kind of big victim but in the end thats all she was: very very very selfish. she has left her kid one of the worst kinds of issues to have to work through. unless she truly was mentally ill and seeing and hearing things that werent there, it was just a cop, just one big end to what appears to be a lifelong whine when things dont go her way.
I am appalled at the harsh and unfeeling critisism I have read! I did not know this young lady, nor was I familiar with her writings, until now, but what I DO know is the terrible loss that suicide brings to everyone involved. My mother committed suicide two years ago and the pain is still swift and sharp. Yes I get angry at her for making that decision, especially when I watch my three sweet children whom she will never get to watch grow up. But, overall I just feel deeply saddened by the fact that due to her illness (she was bi-polar) she felt that taking her life was her only answer. She struggled for years with her illness before taking her life. Contrary to the poster's opinion, although people that suffer from depression don't "see of hear things", it is a truly debilitating illness, one I watched her fight with everday. She was an excellent mother contrary to anyone's opinion! I do not judge her for what she did. I also do not judge Allison for it, nor am I going to judge her for her teen pregnancy. I don't believe she went into the "how it happened" because that was not the point. The point was that it DID happen and resulted in a pregnancy that she was trying to deal with the best she could with all the pressures of others. I am pro-life and a supported of abstinence until marriage, but I also believe that you should support those whom made a decision of not abstaining and now have the consequences of that decision to face. She made a decision to have her baby despite all the outside pressures which tells me she was a courageous and unselfish woman at a young age. I am sure this was not a decision anyone will ever understand, but no one should attack her mothering skills because of it!
Carolyn
I think there is a huge difference between supporting someone in which of the options they now have, having closed themselves off from what would have been the best one by thier own wrong choices. and really just glamorizing and insisting that everyone else enable them. I read the web site this woman started and quite honestly with articles on how to bully your school into providing daycare that you are "entitled" to I was appalled. I am not sure where the line is between extending grace to someone who has made a mistake and reaching a point where it is no longer a mistake at all but something to be celebrated. I have heard that in a lot of high schools the fact that the pregnant girls are being given baby showers at school now winds up leading to even more girls thinking this seems "cool" and deliberately getting pregnant.
as far as this womans suicide, I think I mentioned my own grandmother committed suicide. my father is the one that found her and I think it was a major factor in his being screwed up. this may be a hugely radical statement but I also dont buy the epidemic of "organic mental illness" that seems to be going around these days. much of it, I believe is the product of distorted thinking. heck, even some secular therapists see this...David Burns I believe is the guy...change your thinking and a lot of depression evaporates. I do not doubt there are a few cases of real organic illness out there but I dont buy that its this big hidden epidemic. I was misdiagnosed and medicated as a child for ADHD which I do not have. I dont go totally with people such as Peter Breggin who totally believe there is no such thing as mental illness but I think it is grossly overdiagnosed. it makes me angry to see things that are almost guaranteed to lead to heartbreak being promoted and then when people are broken by these things the same people just shove pills at them. sex outside of marriage being a prime example of this. I believe most people who commit suicide have extremely distorted thinking. not all, but most. to be honest I formed an opinion of this woman as I read her essay..it seemed to me like one big whine with no admission on her part that she had got herself into this jam so now she had some unappealing options staring her in the face and she needed to grow up like a big girl and face the music instead of whining about how mean everyone was to her. its a lot easier to feel for someone who is admitting they made a mistake that now they cant undo than with someone who just appears to be blaming a situation so clearly of thier own doing on everything else but that. I mean how did she get pregnant? was there something in her water? and the irony is that after her insistance on keepign this child she has traumatized him in the worst possible way I can imagine. I guess if I had fought that hard for my kid I would do anything to not leave him/her with that kind of legacy. but maybe thats because I know what suicide does to people left behind. and I say this as someone who has struggled with depression so severe I could barely function. I feel for those left behind but its hard to generate much sympathy for the girl herself.
no, its obvious the Crews woman was never ashamed. even when maybe perhaps a little bit of shame might have been highly appropriate.
might I note that the actual cause of death has not been made public. Alli was normal and happy one day and found dead the next morning. They are calling it an accidental suicide.
Dear Asshole Troll, whoever you are, it is glaringly obvious that you have also the serious emotional problems you speak of.
PISS OFF!
Allison Crews, Rest in Peace, mama.
and, uh, what is an "accidental suicide" pray tell??? does it mean you were dicking around trying to manipulate someone by pretending you were going to kill yourself and oops, you actually did it? I would think an accidental death (say you slip, all and hit your head or something like that) is an accidental death. "accidental suicide" sure sounds like someone playing games pretending to kill themself who accidentally succeeded.
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