Maine Author and Poet
Ashley Elizabeth Mitchell
Ashley Elizabeth Mitchell is a born-and-raised Mainer, poet, and author of seven books. She is a devoted community volunteer, mental health advocate, Catholic homeschooling mother of six, co-hosts the Strange Shenanigans podcast, and has many other labels that have been thrust upon her in a once label-less world.She lives in Maine with her husband, their children, their dog Jimothy, ducks Gandalf, Bilbo, and Quackeem, and their cats Chief McConky and Eddie Penisi.Books:
Lost Poems of a Functioning Mother: the endless journey of babylossCarry Me Along
— A visual-poetic collaboration exploring death and remembrance.You Are Wondrous
— A poem-collage series of flowers created out of news articles about women in Maine doing great things. The artwork featured by Chitrakar Art School in 2022.Haikus from Lincoln, Maine29Newest Collections of Poetry:I Tried; Failed Submissions from a Serial DreamerHaikus of February
A Memoir Essay for Emily
This piece is dedicated to my friend Emily.My friend Emily asked me to write a memoir essay. I didn’t really know how to do it or where to start. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could do it.Over and over again, I tried to write about one event in my life that changed me. That was my only instruction: Choose one life event and write about what it was and how it changed you.Over and over again, I hated what I wrote and really had no interest in bringing up the past. I also did, and still do, worry about writing or saying anything for fear of hurting those around me. That is something that comes up over and over again, whether it is in my blog posts, newspaper articles, interviews, guest posts, and more. I’m not sure that will ever go away. I made many amends in my life, especially as I have gotten older. I worked really hard to grow past my anger and embrace the present and my future now. When I write or speak, which I do on a vast variety of topics, I have a constant fear of hurting someone when I bring something up in my past. Whether it is my past actions, someone else's past actions, or something I see only one way; it is something that constantly looms in the background of everything I do.This exercise also made me wonder if I had anything worth writing. Especially after doing the work that I do, I have seen that my pain, my hardships, are nothing compared to those I have worked with. I have also learned that we all need to stop comparing pain and war stories. We need to stop seeing someone's life being harder or better than someone else's story. Everyone is recovering from something, everyone is struggling with something, and your pain is no different from my pain or the pain of my neighbour.Regardless, here is my attempt at a memoir essay for Emily. I guess these are the moments in my life that have defined me, condensed into all these little moments and experiences. Emily deserves for me to do this right because she has done nothing but inspire me every day that I get to spend with her or hear from her.Being the director of a recovery center has meant sharing stories, memories, and past experiences. Something that was very unfamiliar to me. Many things in my life I repressed for a reason. Repression really hasn't been an option, which now I know is a good thing, but I had to discover that. I keep discovering that sharing my past and experiences is a good thing, and sometimes it is a welcome thing, and this settles my heart more than the naysayers and negative people in my life and in my work.My lived experience, another label I had to discover and embrace, is in mental health and mental health struggles. I do not have a recovery story to share in the sense that plays out in the world I am immersed in; in that world, I am considered what is called "an affected other," which is sometimes embraced and sometimes (most of the time) pushed aside.The label “affected other” in my world means someone who is affected by substance use. While I am unsure how that doesn’t apply to almost everyone, this is where I land. I am an affected other because I do not have enough fingers and toes to count the number of my direct family members who had or have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, opioids, gambling, many other drugs, OTC’s, and many other substances. I knew, way before I landed in a recovery center, that the cycle had to be broken somewhere. I was not going to pass on the generational trauma to the next generation. While I have failed, I also know that I have done the best I can, and I keep passing on all the unfiltered knowledge I can, and I have made sure that this next generation has a better chance. They will be the ones, I can guarantee it, who will break the generational cycle. I have lost family to overdoses, suicide, and illness related to the unhealthy relationships that substances thrive on.Mental health is something I struggled with, and still do, for as long as I can remember. I cannot pinpoint when it started, but it has always been a part of me. While I look back now and can see how far I have come. I still live in fear of many traits and curses coming back; they haunt the back of my mind.When I was in my teen years, I was suicidal, self-harming (and I still have the scars to remind me constantly), I suffered from undiagnosed severe depression and anxiety, was a pathological liar, had terribly low self-esteem, and was bulimic. I resented help as a teen and craved it at any moment. I was ashamed and scared and felt like I’d be an even bigger failure if I let anyone help me. I also felt like everyone would just be one more person who would not listen to me, who would not hear me, and who would not see me. I had spent years in physical and verbal abuse from those around me, and I had repressed memories of inappropriate behavior from medical staff that took me years to admit and cope with (well into adulthood). I had no trust in anyone around me and felt like I had to act the way I did because somehow me making everything worse would somehow make it better.I was a confused and lost teen. Looking back, I am incredibly blessed to have had the people in my life who stayed with me regardless of the way I acted and regardless of the things I went through and put myself and others through.Later on in my life, I suffered from postpartum depression, numerous times over, and I still cope with the demons of depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues, and eating issues (that have turned into the opposite of bulimia). Now I can top it all off with ADHD.My anxiety issues skyrocketed when my daughter passed away at birth (stillborn). With that life event came more depression, a new fear of crowds in closed buildings, and being overwhelmed at the drop of a hat. Most traits that developed after the death of our daughter did not go away, they are symptoms of something that is bigger than me. That was an incredibly hard time for me, my husband, and everyone around me. I look back now, and I can see how close I was slipping back into the old habits of my teen years that have cursed my memories and fears. Out of all the hardships in my life, that hardship was the one, out of any of them, that I could see allowing me to backtrack on all the work I had done in my life to be a different person than who I was. Luckily, I was able to grow out of that experience and allow that tredgiy and grief to be a part of me and not define my marriage or myself. It was another thing my marriage had to overcome, an event that made it what it is today. Now, I can take that hurt and acknowledge what happened, and acknowledge her life. I believe this creates space for every other mother and father who has been through this to be able to do the same.My marriage already had to overcome my teen years, already had to overcome the struggles that come with marrying so young, and already had to overcome the demons that I brought into it. Now that I have been able to grow and look back, I am so blessed to see how my life and everything a part of it has turned out and grown into. Despite my flaws, despite the days where the darkness runs across my face, I have always had someone who has never given up on me, and I have been able to help break this generational cycle for my children and change their outcomes so they are not the same as mine.My next life event that changed me is when my little brother died, at 14 years old. My world was crushed. He died of cancer, and it was an incredible struggle. I struggled deeply with not being the sister I could have been. I was so much older than him and was living my life; I had never worried about it because he was always going to be there. We would be able to make up for lost time when we both were both adults together. All us siblings, all 4 of us, we never got that opportunity. It was taken from us.In the end, it brought my family a lot closer than we had been in the past but it also tore up my family. This journey holds damage that I am unsure will ever be repaired. That is a spot in my heart that will never be filled, that will always be empty and hurt. That grief does not go away; you just learn how to live with it, allow it to now be a part of your DNA, and keep walking. That moment in my life really is a moment that has never ended; it just keeps going and moving. The 'what ifs' never disappear, and you end up working harder to make sure he doesn't disappear.I hope I am a good mother, but I know that I am a terrible housekeeper; at least I can admit it. I am in a career where a lot of things get brought up, a lot of questions about myself and my own experience get brought up. It has shown me that there are only a few things that are more lonely than suffering with mental health issues, and even in this advanced, progressive day, it is still isolating and not really understood. We all claim we understand, we all pass on tools to cope, we all say you are not alone, but the end result is normally a feeling of no understanding and of being alone. I can end this essay by saying "you are not alone", and while I want that to be true, I know that you feel alone regardless.When your mental health is suffering, you are suffering, and we constantly have to work on it. It is exhausting. It is like a never-ending workout. Even when I am not on edge, I always see the edge, and I work so hard every day not to fall off of it.So there it is, all unnecessarily laid out. For you to take it or toss it out the window. I know there is more that should be in the memoir, more to share. I know I have over-shared, but I hope this is what my friend was looking for and I hope it make her happy.Now, in 2026, compared to 2005, compared to 2013, compared to my whole life, now is where I want to be. I now look forward to growing up and seeing what is coming. Most days, I live in a lot less fear than I used to. I like the place that I am in, and I hope others can find that place too.