Mental health is on my mind this week. I’ve struggled with chronic depression for years; at points, it’s made me withdrawn, dissociative, restless, and unbelievably angry. I’m in a good place right now, but there are others around me who are struggling.

I have a niece and a nephew whose anxiety is so crippling, leaving the house is a struggle.

I have a daughter whose depression is putting her in a very dark place, and I’m deeply worried about her.

When I talk about depression and anxiety, I don’t mean the everyday struggles that come from stressful situations that arise during the course of regular life. I mean the overwhelming struggle to simply get out of bed in the morning, engage with other people, and get things done.

At points in my own life, I’ve had to literally map out my day in ten-to-fifteen minute increments, on paper, so that I could check things off as I went to feel accomplished and somewhat positive. And sometimes, the biggest check mark was right next to “Get up.”

What many don’t understand is that depression and the family of illnesses that surround it aren’t situational, and they can’t be explained away. Biochemical problems in the brain create a medical problem that can be treated with medication, and therapy can help people who suffer from these illnesses to come up with coping strategies. When left untreated, many who suffer can turn to self-medication in the forms of alcohol or other drugs, looking for anything that might help take the pain of these illnesses away.

It can’t be beaten. We can’t just get over it. We can only do our best to control how we deal with it. And we need others to understand that sometimes, we can’t even do that. These illnesses are insidious, making our own minds turn against us, and rendering us impotent, helpless to make any changes at all.

If you are struggling, too, remember you are not alone. You are loved. Help is available to you. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255, and if that’s too much for you, go to Suicidepreventionlifeline.org to chat with someone online.

One of the writing groups I belong to this week started sharing the Facebook game that encourages people to post a book cover each day for seven days, choosing the books that have most influenced them.

I am a rabid reader, and I have been since I first learned my ABCs. To narrow the list down to seven has proved impossible, but in thinking about the influence of books on my life I have, at least, been able to narrow them down.

Books by or about women leaders and legends.

This interest starts with Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the entire nine-volumes of the Little House series of books. But it also includes The Story of My Life by Helen Keller, and biographies of Elizabeth Blackwell, Clara Barton, Juliette Low, Louisa May Alcott, and Queen Elizabeth I. It includes Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Mountain Wolf Woman. Frankly, I can’t recall all of the women’s biographies I’ve read over the years, and these are just the top tier.

Books about the U.S. western experience.

These are largely fiction, but I enjoy both creative nonfiction and fiction that focuses on the U.S. west. I read every Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey book I could get my hands on when I was a tween and teen, and to this day, I can get easily sucked into any of the Sackett books by L’Amour. I’m also fascinated by the actual history, and most historical sites that feature a western anecdote can count on my purchasing several books from their gift shops.

Science fiction (not to be confused with fantasy).

This habit I totally picked up from my father, who also enjoys science fiction. We went through an L. Ron Hubbard phase together, and I must have read Heinlein’s Strangers in a Strange Land until it wore out. We’re also both Star Trek fans, though I have to admit to not being as rabid about that as others I know. (Best Star Trek captain is Janeway. I know them’s fighting words, folks, lol.) I’ve tried my hand at writing cyberpunk, too, in homage to Philip K. Dick.

Mystery

I love a good mystery. I’ve gotten quite good at spotting the perpetrator early on in the text, but there a few authors who can still get me. Let’s start with the classic Sherlock Holmes, because variants of those stories can be found everywhere, and they’re clearly influential to this day. I’ve enjoyed Agatha Christie as well, and my favorite contemporary mystery writer is J.D. Robb, the alter ego of Nora Roberts, who also appears in the next category.

Romance

My grandmother loved a good Harlequin romance, and I was introduced to the world of the paperback romance novel at a young age. There’s something comforting about a story that I know will have a happy ending. It’s like eating cotton candy. Of all the romance writers available today, my favorite is Nora Roberts. Despite my busy schedule, I make time to read the new Nora Roberts books as they come out. I also appreciate her work ethic as a writer.

Fantasy

Oh, boy. I love fantasy. As a kid, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I do as an adult, but now, of course, I’m a true convert. I enjoy, particularly, the Tolkien and the Harry Potter universes. I also have been turned on to The Mortal Instruments series. But honestly, Harry Potter is the true favorite here. I keep my wand in my office, and I sorted Slytherin on Pottermore.

What’s fun in looking over the entire list is noting the different kind of influences these different fields have left with me. I’m a cultural historian that focuses on women’s history, but I’m also a media scholar fascinated by contemporary media technologies and popular culture. It’s hard to know at this age which came first, but this list was fun to complete.

I’ve been thinking this week about my colleague and good friend, Dr. Jensen Moore, whose tweet (@magicalpr) about reclaiming her title of “Dr.” went viral. With #immodestwomen, women with doctorates and other credentials have stepped up and reclaimed the honorifics as their due.

As they should. As all women should.

I recently discovered that I am the first female full professor in the history of the Department of Mass Media (and any of its previous incarnations). The thought dumbfounded me a bit, because how is it still possible that some firsts like that still exist in 2018?

I was tempted to downplay the achievement. I am always tempted to downplay my achievements, and in many ways, I often do downplay my achievements.

Part of this tendency to modesty comes from socialization and acculturation. Women of my cultural background (white, small town, upper Midwest, largely rural) get on with things. We step in, we do what needs to be done, we step back.

The tactic we’re taught is to work around and behind the scenes to effect change. Up front, well-publicized rebellion against the status quo only incites the menfolk. Present a well-thought out fait accompli, on the other hand, and the menfolk take the credit. Whether they do or not doesn’t matter, as long as the project (movement, whatever) gets done.

Evidence of this attitude can be found in multiple places. Historian Genevieve McBride documented an entire women’s movement in the Midwest that happened underground, in the women’s clubs and social circles. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in her column in the Missouri Ruralist, discussing suffrage, that many women agree that their men “are not infallible.” She did so while pointing out strategies for working around them.

In Mary Poppins, Mrs. Banks sings a song about her suffrage work, and the lyrics are telling: “While we adore men individually, we agree that as a whole they’re rather stupid.” I’d forgotten this line until I introduced my preschool-aged daughters to the movie, and it caught me by surprise, even as I giggled.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich said, in her book, A Midwife’s Tale, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” The line also became the title of another of her books. Her point, in general, is that everyday women simply get on with what it is they need to do, as her protagonist, midwife Martha Ballard, did.

The lesson behind #immodest women, therefore rings with truth. Go ahead and get on with it, but don’t forget to take your credit where its due, too. In today’s climate, those living modestly get overlooked and left behind.

Congratulations, Dr. Moore, for raising this issue. And to all my colleagues, past, present, and future, remember to claim your title and own your own achievements.

I’ve watched the news out of Annapolis with the kind of slow disbelief that accompanies the witnessing of great tragedy. The deaths of four journalists and a sales assistant in their own workplace frightens me, but more because of its implications for U.S. culture today than because I never believed something like that could happen. History is fraught with the murders of people whose job it was to speak truth to power.

As a journalist in the 90s, I accepted the dangers inherent in the profession. People do not like to have their dirty laundry aired in public. People do not like to have their hypocrisies exposed, or their careers threatened, by the truth that reporters are required by their professions and ethics to deliver to the public.

Journalism is an honorable profession. Journalists gather information, process it, and present it to the public in a way that’s easily understood so that the public can make informed decisions about their lives. Politicians by nature have difficulty with journalists, because politicians by nature must have some secrets. In order for government to move smoothly together, a great deal goes on behind the scenes, and politicians are not eager for their constituents–the voters–to necessarily know about these kinds of machinations.

And so, journalists are attacked, regularly. Because ethical, responsible journalists are trained to tell all sides of a story, keeping out of them as much as possible, journalists themselves are left vulnerable to such attacks because the profession prohibits them from defending themselves in public and in the press. It’s a shame, because the unscrupulous who understand this fact have no difficulty at all exploiting it, labeling the best of our work “fake” to imply that it has no truth at all.

By undercutting truth in this way, the public is duped. By undercutting truth in this way, journalists become even more vulnerable to attack. By undercutting truth in this way, democracy comes under attack.

Journalists’ only defense for their printed words? Truth. Provable in a court of law, if necessary. Accuracy. Solid, cited sources.

One of the best compliments I ever received as a journalist was from a politician who really didn’t care for my work, mostly because it compelled him to think more about the implications of his decisions, I think. But he said, “If that’s what her article said, than it must be right. I might not like what she says but it’s always truth.”

And the truth, in many corners, is a dangerous, dangerous, thing.

I grieve with the staff at the Capitol Gazette today, and I urge caution in those who are quick to lay blame. We do not yet have all the facts. And it would not do to be inaccurate in the retelling. Honor those fallen with truth.

I had lots of material to write about from the weekend, but it’s overshadowed by my reception of several tweets, messages and emails about the vote by the Association for Library Service to Children board to change the name of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award to the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.

The reason cited by the ALSC’s web site was that Wilder’s legacy “includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness.”

I’m concerned by the move for a number of reasons, but ultimately, it’s the board’s decision. As I am neither a librarian or a children’s book author, I don’t actually have a voice in that particular discussion. The position of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association about the subject most accurately reflects my personal thoughts.

I am, however, an historian, and in that light, I’m troubled by the reasoning behind the decision, and what appears to be a rejection of Wilder’s personal history and story. After all, it is a shared history. I fear some might think a rejection of Wilder’s history is a personal rejection, and that perception contributes to the divisiveness already pervasive in U.S. culture today. It is tied into a troubling rupture in civility and a cognitive dissonance that prevents people on both sides of the divide from understanding the others’ perspectives.

This is not a new division. I documented that such a division existed as early as 1960, between a proud rural culture and an increasingly vibrant and diverse urban culture, masked under a presumption of common shared knowledge that quite literally did not–and I dare say still does not–exist. The rural experience is strikingly different from the urban experience, and while members of both cultures presume they are speaking the same language and understanding each other, the truth is they are not. Nor are they likely to, given the current cultural climate.

Wilder’s stories share her personal history with manifest destiny and the pioneer experience, which were obviously and overtly racist. Poor white Americans were actively encouraged with promises of “free” land to displace American Indians from their ancestral homes and steal them. Wilder’s telling of that history, through the lens of a white female child of that time, therefore is also, obviously, racist. But does that mean it’s worth rejecting? Because rejecting that history means leaving a generation in ignorance of a troubled past that we as a culture should actively be investigating, discussing, and where appropriate, making amends for.

Philosopher George Santayana once said, in a oft-repeated and mangled quote, “Those who cannot remember their past are condemned to repeat it.” Pulitzer Prize winner and commentator Leonard Pitts, Jr., has said, and repeats, that we are all racist. And they’re both right.

It’s a shame the ASLC’s standard of inclusiveness doesn’t include Wilder. Forgetting that history may well doom us to repeat it.