Mental Wellness

Wise Hearts

Well, maybe you haven’t heard (why would you?) but it’s true. I have lived exactly FIVE decades plus one year. Today, I am 51. According to the mostly white-haired congregation I serve, I’m still a BABY. They’re right, of course.  BUT, this year, I am more aware and feel a little unsettled knowing that I’m closer to being a SENIOR than I am to my YOUTH. It means my parents are actually old and my children are almost grown. (But not yet!)

It’s okay, though, really. A few of my dearest friends have at LEAST a decade on me. Some even have decadeS – PLURAL. Not everyone is so lucky. Aging is a gift. If we are willing, it gives us more time to learn HOW to love. To LEARN to be ourselves.

Since I’m (a bit) of a Bible nerd, I can pair this thought with an appropriate verse. I’m not a fan of cherry-picking Bible verses to prove a point. HOWEVER, I love the Psalms, and this particular verse just happens to bring comfort to my personal struggle with time FLEETING away.

So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.

Psalm 90:12

Moses (yes, THE MOSES who parts the Red Sea) is the ascribed author.  He is PROBABLY inspired while leading a caravan of Israelites through the desert to the promised land (Canaan – roughly modern day Palestine and Israel) AFTER being liberated from CENTURIES of  slavery in Egypt.   The people have grown restless and distracted.  Like PETULANT toddlers, Moses can’t stop them from getting into trouble.  For instance, when he turns his back (to receive the 10 Commandments – no less) their babysitter (Aaron) CAN’T keep them from being consumed by sin. They make and begin worshiping a golden calf. Pesky buggers. Their repeated rebellion against Moses and their lack of trust in his and their God added years, GENERATIONS, to their time of wandering. Different people from those who BEGAN the journey actually FINISHED it. The old people died. Babies were born. An altogether NEW people emerged.

This Psalm is for them and for anyone who is tired and restless like you and me.  Old Moses reminds us that the one he, I, and many call GOD and just as many describe as our one SOURCE, The CREATOR, the GREAT SPIRIT, is ETERNAL. God is beyond time and the universe; our Source has no origin or creation.  The Creator, the Great Spirit simply “IS.” Human beings, on the other hand, die and return to the dust from which they are made (Psalm 90:1–4). (Even Moses didn’t make it to the promised land on earth). To begin to understand our Source is to realize our own MORTALITY.

Moses introduces God as both a refuge and the Creator for we – whose days are numbered.

If I count my days, it has been 18627 days since my birth. I feel that in this time, I’ve SURELY accumulated SOME wisdom.  My heart is informed by many instances of joy and pain. It’s brought me this far. I’m still learning and relearning, uncovering and embracing my TRUEST me. Sounds easy enough. Nope. Not easy.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried or that I’m ready for tomorrow. I AM worried and I’m NOT ready.  I admit that this is NOT where I thought I’d be at 51.  Life takes us through so many unforeseeable twists and turns, doesn’t it?  What I expected of myself and where I’m at simply DON’T match up.

By 51 I had thought that I’d be out of debt and own a house, that my family and I would be healthy and well adjusted, that I’d always get along with my husband, enjoy my work, have time for fun, and that I’d be a ROCK STAR. Alas, it is not so.

It’s OKAY. Although it is super hard to stop beating ourselves up about the way things ARE, the gift of GROWING wisdom is always there. Waiting. Ready for us. Life is beautiful. Some of that beauty comes from recognizing that it is REALLY SHORT. Because of this, we are more apt to savour the moments we share and make the best of our relationships. LOVE through the pain. Find STRENGTH in the joy.

This week, I’ve been setting up an RDSP (disability savings) for my 19 year old daughter.  I never dreamed I’d make retirement plans for one of my children. Yesterday (it feels like only yesterday) when she was free to swirl and twirl with ferocity and creativity, we loved her spunk and assumed she’d grow out of her more troublesome emotional and mental conditions. We THOUGHT we had all the time in the world. We love her quirkiness. Now we understand that there is more to it than expected. It’s all a part of how she is wonderfully and mysteriously made and LOVED.  We don’t know what her life will be like when she is sixty, but there is comfort in knowing she’ll ALWAYS have her siblings and have a modest income EVEN when I’m long gone.

I like to think I won’t be gone. Not REALLY. I hope that the energy that animates my body, the vibrations of my soul will LINGER – perhaps as electricity and spirit. ‘Is that light bulb flickering, or is it auntie so and so?’ I don’t know, but I do believe in the connection the living and the dead SHARE in what Christians call the Communion of Saints. Others may be familiar with the phrase, ‘the great cloud of witnesses’. Different faiths turn to the spirits of their ancestors for wisdom and guidance. Somehow, we continue to EXIST and experience each other’s presence in life and in death. Signs, dreams, and feelings that loved ones are near are common across the boundaries of time and space.

It makes me think of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio (Rose & Jack) in the movie ‘Titanic’ and Celine Dione’s sappy song, “My heart will go on”.  Our time as human beings is limited.  Our hearts/souls/godsparks WILL GO ON. It makes me weep and smile at the same time.  What we do in this life is temporary. We have ETERNITY to figure things out together.  We are NEVER alone.

51 years is pretty cool. I’ll take it. Today and every day, I hope you will join me in counting our blessings as well as our days. Learn, grow, LIVE. Embrace the season. Time will hold us. Our hearts belong to the ETERNAL ONE.

God has made everything beautiful in its time. God has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Nobody’s Perfect

 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

I’ve felt a real SHIFT recently.  It didn’t come all at once but I could sense my heart moving DIFFERENTLY. Is this something that comes with age? No – it is NOT age!  I prefer to call it an increase in the collection of LIVED experience. This coming weekend I will be celebrating another year added to my maturation of KNOWING.

The last year has been a personal push and pull but, after some much needed self reflection and trusted feedback, I have made some quiet decisions that make me feel a LITTLE more settled.  I don’t feel AS lost.

Personal PEACE has always been hard to maintain. For a time, I was totally and completely OBSESSED with exercising. Yoga, weightlifting, walking, sit ups, squats  stretches – EVERY single day.  My muscles had no time to heal. I also cycled through eating less, eating more, eating healthier, and fasting (AKA  STARVING myself).  This left me with too little protein to support the high activity so I was CONSTANTLY dizzy.  My body shape morphed rapidly and accordingly, as did my personality. 

Meditation, mood tracking apps and journaling didn’t last long.  I’m all disordered and couldn’t sufficiently rein them in. I committed myself to going outside and standing with my face to the sun for 10 minutes a day – even in the deep crispness of winter. I committed to SHOWERING.  SERIOUSLY. If you get it, if you relate to ANY of THIS, you are my kindred. WELCOME. Pull up a chair. I KNOW, RIGHT?

I kept up with the yoga during my sick leave, four years ago, and I read 142 books. I expected to return to work rejuvenated. Instead  I was EXHAUSTED and have remained so through Covid right to THIS moment.  

Breathe in. 1-2-3-4-5-6.

Hold. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

Breathe out. 1-2-3-4-5-6.

I think, I HOPE, I’m finally starting to TOUCH it. INNER PEACE.  I’m still working on all the ‘forgive yourself for not knowing then, what you know now.’ There’s A LOT to wade through there. 

I didn’t know the venom my oldest brother directed at me EVERY moment of my childhood was traumatizing. Since his death 10 years ago,   I’m only now deciphering how my relationship with him impacted my whole life. My relationships. My choices.

When I get trapped by the SELF WORTH devil,  it IS hard to escape unscathed. It’s way too easy to list all the things I’ve done wrong in my life and worse, all I’ve failed to do as a parent.  It’s truly something to be able to sort out the blessings from the pain of our lives because the blessing often roots in the hurt.  It ain’t so easy to just ‘turn that frown upside down’. So much baggage hangs from the sad lines on my face.

The only thing that has really kept me from sinking is my desire for God. Does that sound weird? Yup. It sounds weird, doesn’t it? Desiring God.

I saw a Meme somewhere recently that took me by surprise. It said, 

“What a great joy it is to laugh with someone and consciously notice how much their existence means to you.” It drew out tears. Maybe I’m just an emotional jellyfish, but they were real and beautiful, a salty wet ocean that reminded me again of my faith. My constant yearning for God.

In the moments I despise myself most,  I most clearly realize how much I need to depend on God to LOVE me for who I AM.  I am NOT the perfect daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, pastor, or friend.  Imperfections and weakness seethe through me, they battle with me to be let out. When my most hated parts wear me down, I am reckless, snappy, snarky, hateful, and so very angry.  But you see, when I come back to myself, shake it off, straighten my blouse, God is still loving me like crazy. ‘Good job, kid. You made it through. What will you do now?’

My answer will always be, ‘Well Almighty One, I will share love.’ God’s love is the constant, stable reality that even accepts us at our worst, when we feel like failures, when we feel sinful. Our weakness pulls us closer to God. I can feel my godspark soul shine brightly through the shroud of self-disgust and radiate outward, guiding me (AND YOU, TOO) to be empathetic, and to embrace others in their weakness too.  We can pause, breathe, and wonder at the gravity of human worth, the simple joy that comes in accepting one another as God does.

Our imperfections can bring us closer to God and to others, especially to those we might look down on. Our flaws help us grow compassion and the ability to give and receive love.

This is the PEACE I feel I’ve been shifting toward.  God is perfect.  We are perfectly designed to be what God created us to BE. The divine Spirit dwells within OUR bodys, which are still full of sin.  God has chosen, for now, that we, the forgiven, still be imperfect. It’s the now and not yet of God’s realm within us. You are a Spirit-filled ‘work in progress’.  We are not yet what we will someday be. 

There is strength in weakness and joy is at the ready in your divinely held heart. 💖

 “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” Philippians 3:12
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Oh Poop

Here’s the thing. I’m just going to conclude that you ARE enough and you are LOVED. If that’s all you need today, great. As you were. 🖖Nanoo, nanoo.

If you are still with me, PLEASE tell me it’s not just me who gets caught up in the smorgasbord of self-help and advice, streaming from cyber space? I spend an inordinate amount of time on my devices, reading HUNDREDS of tantalizing comments on topics including parenting teens, cleaning tips, and mental health. Ridiculously, I’m a member of a group called “going grey gracefully” while I sport just a few downy silvers on my head.  I NEVER comment or post on these sites. I’m quite comfortable LURKING because, good heavens, what if someone ENGAGES with me? Then they will KNOW.  BUT, I find (wayward) pleasure in conversing with myself about the delightful humour and discovery as well as the SHOCKING (gossipy) negative JUDGEMENTS voiced online (especially) when someone is genuinely asking for help or just has weird humour. I like weird humour and honesty the best. 

I’ve always enjoyed ‘People watching’. Scrolling the Socials just takes it to a new and more in depth level of SEEING and identifying with the vulnerability of humans. I religiously follow cleaning tips knowing full well I’m NOT going to clean any better – BUT, I find others who are just like me in that group. A backward solidarity develops. It quite ODDLY helps.

Before I was introduced to social media I partook in the risk free watching of reality TV shows. When my kids were tiny I watched ‘Jon and Kate Plus 8’. As a young professional I watched ‘What Not to Wear’ and any home makeover and house cleaning shows.  I liked ‘The People’s Court’, and survival challenges, and, oh, how I GLORIED in, ‘You Are What You Eat,’ a shameful show that involved unhealthy individuals presenting their POOP in tupperware containers for examination! Egad! What is this affliction?

As far as I can reckon, at least personally, this behaviour is seeking validation for the way we REALLY live. Online offerings become (for me, anyway) the village that teaches us HOW TO COPE- especially for those of us who are at a distance from mentors, family, and close friends.   I’ve spent my entire adult life far from my circle of trusted people.  We can’t help measuring our lives against the Instagram-ready backdrop of people living their BEST LIVES.  Advice is coming from goodness only knows where and our vulnerable brains can’t always filter out the NONSENSE from the TRUTH.

Unfortunately, (I find) social media does much more convicting and condemning than it does praising or affirming. Of course there ARE some absolutely wonderful sharing platforms and groups that are healthy and helpful. My mentally ill brain always gravitates toward the SHOULDS rather than the truly gracious spaces. I fixate on promises of mindfulness and peace even when it’s from a Facebook, self-proclaimed expert.

I know that even though it can be an all-consuming crutch, I WON’T STOP scrolling because it absurdly feeds my need for CONNECTION with others.

It really BUGS me how much I actually NEED others because I prefer being alone. But, I also like laughing, learning, and sharing with others.

We are social animals.  We are designed to live in community. This DOES NOT mean CONSTANTLY being in the presence of others. We CAN retreat.  Sharing our solo experiences when we’re ready, through art, the written word, or our storytelling, IS being in COMMUNITY too. YOU, as you read this blog are unwittingly connecting with my heart. (Cue the segue into faith talk – stop here if you don’t want to go there. PS. You are enough and you are loved.)

Our hearts matter. Your deepest you, your godspark, your spirit, your soul MATTERS. Online platitudes and judgements are often inefficient bandaids to hold ourselves together. It’s best (I think) to use social media for entertainment and inspiration. Know that most of the ‘people’ preaching the hard fast truth are not necessarily right. Do your own research and think YOUR OWN thoughts.  All of us have sensitive inwardness that can so easily be hurt.

I’m a Christian, so when I speak about spirit, original life source, and universal connection, I’m referring to God whom I worship. Regardless of your faith resonances, we have a lot in common.

We matter in the great order of things. We all began with the Great SOURCE of all being.  As big as this spirit energy is, one of the greatest and wonderful mysteries is that this All in All, beginning and goodness of everything, from beetle bugs to star shine, knows us individually and personally.

In the Christian Bible, the Jewish Torah, the Muslim Quran, and holy books I have never known, prophets claim that the same source of life for all creation knits us together in the womb of our Mothers and breathes spirit life into us individually and collectively.

Like our ancestors we live filled with the eternal Spirit, Soul, universal love and goodness of our original life source. Our lives are full of purpose.

When we are aimlessly scrolling for reflections of ourselves in the best and the worst of social media, when we feel small or insignificant or are suffering in any way, we tend to forget where we came from. The great source knows us before we are even aware of ourselves. We live unique lives that cannot really be equated with or far removed from the experiences of others. Being in community and relationship in all our diversity is BEAUTIFUL.

As advanced as we are in medicine and science, mystery surrounds how each child has a distinct personality and skills, as well as a soul, a lasting energy. I believe these parts of us are Spirit-breathed. We can put cells together, but creating a soul is beyond us. We can manipulate biology, but a soul’s formation is in the hands of the great mystery.

We BELONG to one another.  Our individual life journeys involve SHARING our hearts, our skills, and our faith in goodness. We can share our dedication to hope and our mission to create a better world TOGETHER. Instead of pointing fingers, lifting up inadequacies, and drawing attention to how much or how little our poop stinks, we can help one another name what IS UNIQUE about us and assist each other in finding purpose and peace.

We are here by the design of the greatest and best mystery there is. We were loved before we knew anything else. We will continue to be loved when what we know fades. We will be loved into ETERNITY whether our house IS clean or our teenager is lippy, or NOT.

In the meantime, know you ARE NOT ALONE in the expanses of the internet world. We have each other. Even our life source is with us, beating in our hearts, laughing in our souls, and living each moment in each breath you breathe. I BELIEVE IT. I hope that you, too, can allow that belief to ground you through everything you face in life. You ARE ENOUGH and you are LOVED.

Me and Pastor Nadine. The masks we wear.

How would you describe yourself to someone?

I know how OTHERS would describe me. It’s much harder from my perspective. Whoever  provides these writing prompts asks questions I’d dare not explore without invitation.  I wasn’t going to write about this one, in fact I vowed to avoid it, however, since completing my morning obligations, I’ve been sitting here on my couch with my phone, doing NOTHING at all to help my spirit. Maybe this will stir me to do SOMETHING. My blog, Nuanced Niddy, has become something of a journal and confessional space that I find FREEING.

I am on my ‘day off’ from my PAID work.  I’m always the mom of 4 teenagers and wife to a hard working man. He’s also very stressed and does his best at the end of the day to do his part. Thank God he cooks. We’d live on toast if he didn’t.  

There’s a lot to do. Every room of my house is dirty, the refrigerator and the bathrooms need serious attention and the yard is a disaster. It all requires so much energy. STARTING is too overwhelming. 

Time spent focusing on my WORK work keeps me from tackling THIS embarrassing mess.  I feel bad for my kids. They live here too. I’m not sure why I don’t enlist their help.  As it is, I don’t ever let anyone from OUTSIDE past the porch. My family doesn’t care.  They let anyone see. This mortifies me.

As a churchy public ‘celebrity’ of sorts, I carry myself mostly in my ‘SWITCHED ON’ position. It’s exhausting but weirdly easier to be ‘HER’. Pastor Nadine doesn’t need to be so concerned with the rest of herself.  Not that she’s inauthentic, but when I am ‘her’ I don’t have to be me.  I have a hard time with ME.

While Pastor Nadine is jolly, intelligent, strong, chatty, likeable, funny, experienced and interesting, that’s really only a well practiced MASK.

I am often depressed.  I am mentally ill.  I don’t fit in. I don’t believe people like me or respect me. I’m anxious, terrified by things that better adjusted people can do with ease. I’m a horrible judge of character.  I am either too quiet or I share too much (like this).  I’m impulsive (like cutting my own hair at midnight). I’m never satisfied with my body, I’m moody, I’m high maintenance. I like attention and I hate attention.

Pastor Nadine and I share some important qualities.  We care, A LOT.  We want to be helpful.  We have deep faith in an all LOVING God.  We love our family. We love being in God’s good creation.  Working for justice and peace drives us.

I happen to have Borderline Personality Disorder.  It’s complicated. It is a very uncomfortable condition.  It’s not something that attracts people, that’s for sure. EVERYONE wears different masks for different situations.  I think we all have different PARTS of ourselves that contribute to the WHOLE of oneself. A part of me always insists that I keep smiling, keep working, keep surviving. A part of me desperately wants me to RUN or to QUIT.  Having a personality disorder doesn’t mean I’m so different. It DOES mean that my ‘parts’ are not functioning properly.  Mental health and physical health EQUALLY require relief. Some ailments need surgery, some need medication and counseling.  ALL health issues need our empathy and compassion.

When I was born the nurses likened me to a tiger lily.  I appeared so tiny and fragile like a lily but I was strong like a tiger.  I still like that description.  Strength and vulnerability marry well.  How would I describe myself to someone else? I’m just like you.  I’m someone doing the best that I can to follow the way of loving YOU and all people, including myself.  God willing.

Cry Laughing (mental health)

It seems I am always tired, angry, and laughing too loud.  Depression is EXHAUSTING. During this current bout of it, I listened to an audiobook for the first time. If you’re wondering, I find that it takes just as much focus as actually reading the words.  The lovely part is that there is a storytelling presence. It feels intimate. It feels like a connection, like someone sitting next to you, keeping your heaviness in check, engaging in a relationship. Listening to this voice feels like you have a FRIEND.

It disturbs me that I was listening to the authour of a ”TELL ALL” memoir narrate her own words this week, and I was feeling all kinds of validation and solidarity with her when I heard about the death of Sinéad O’Connor.  GULP. It was HER voice, HER memoir, “Rememberings” that I’d been listening to.  It makes me shiver in shock.

I’ve admired Sinéad since I was a teenager.  Back then, she was mesmerizing and terrifying. She was so angry on behalf of the causes she supported that she stopped at NOTHING to clearly advocate.  She was about the age of my older brother.  It wowed me that she was so young and passionate about things I’d not given a thought to, if I was even aware of them. 

I’ve just invested hours into getting to know her, to understand her more, to LOVE her, and to look forward to MORE from her.  My respect for her has done nothing but expand. She endured SO MUCH.  And now THIS.

Despite abuse and misogyny, she spoke TRUTH. She did everything she did on her own terms.  Despite multiple mental illness diagnoses, she kept on keeping on. She was a mother, a woman of faith, and an advocate for the helpless.

My parishioners are familiar with what I call our Godsparks – the Holy Spirit dwelling IN each of us. Sinéad expressed that she strongly felt the Spirit, the Comforter whom Jesus promised, in and around her.  She said that when she was speaking, the divine in her spoke to the divine in another. Her music was her ministry, and  she followed her Godspark wherever it led. 

During coffee time after church this morning, a friend and I were discussing how no one goes untouched by trauma.  We may not be aware of what influences our behaviour or that of others. I know I wasn’t.  We are so quick to label and judge.  Mental illness is still so STIGMATIZED that we who have serious risks often go unchecked.  Even under close supervision, disaster can strike.

No medical cause for her death has been offered, but we know Sinéad O’Connor lost her son to mental illness by suicide.  I lost my brother to mental illness by suicide, too.  Suicidal ideation is sneaky.  I’ve always maintained that I could NEVER go through with it.

This week reminded me of my own vulnerability. There WAS a time in my first pastorate when I was young, I was married, and I held the world.  YET, one snowy night on a back road, my little sports car started to get hard to handle. I was sliding and DECIDED there was nothing I could do. I didn’t even try.  I GAVE UP.  I just surrendered to the darkness. I let go of the wheel and let whatever was coming COME.  I denied being clinically  depressed.  I hadn’t sought diagnosis, treatment, or any help at all.  Thankfully, the car slid off the road, cleared the ditch, and sunk deeply into the snow just inches from a tree.  I liked the adrenaline rush and the attention I got when I shared the carefully edited story about what happened.

Mental illness, unresolved trauma, impulsive behaviour – it can MESS with your brain even unto death.

We do a lot of praying in church. I pray almost constantly wherever I am.  When things go sideways, my impulse isn’t to blame God. Instead, I CONVINCE myself that I must be praying WRONG, or I’m so BAD that God’s not listening. Really awful theology, I know.

Two things that will stick with me from that memoir I listened to this week. First, Sinéad O’Connor thought ‘cry laughing’ was the best expression of the mania and depression of so many mental illnesses. “Nothing feels better than cry laughing,” she said. She also said, “God doesn’t always GET to answering our prayers IN TIME because sometimes God is TOO busy WEEPING.”  Indeed.

Look after yourselves.  Pray. Feel your Godspark at work and let God answer prayer in, with, and through you.  Peace friends.

Frolicking Faith (paired with Depression)

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” 

Philippians 4:8

I woke up this morning with a heavy head. It didn’t take long for the familiar gnawing to start in my gut and radiate to behind my eyes where tears sit at the ready.  I want to eat, eat, eat, (I’m eating right now – but I’m not hungry), and I just can’t DO the THINGS. If I have to see anyone today, they won’t know that I’m stuck in this cloud again. I should’ve been an actress because man, am I GOOD.

There is comfort to be found, if not in my lived moment, then in scripture. I think, in my young adulthood, the big draw to ministry was the realization of the Spirit’s indwelling in me and a desire to help relieve suffering. As a person who lives with borderline personality disorder, I fix myself on God’s unchangeable love. I do not need to fear abandonment (even though I do) because God will never leave me alone.  We all carry a divine spark. Knowing this brings relief, even if only at a cerebral level – it’s a good starting place.

I feel low today. St. Paul wrote his letter (quoted above) to the church in Philippi while he was in PRISON. Certainly he was in an uncomfortable place. Somehow he rejoiced ANYWAY.  His words remind us that reflecting on the good things, being thankful in each moment – whether marred by clouds or brightly lit – is to live out the incarnation of Christ.  

From my experience with depression I know that sometimes remembering the happy yesterdays can provide at least an iota, a small flicker of hope. Things won’t always be like this. THINGS WON’T ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS!

Yesterday was Sunday. It was a GOOD day.  In the middle of leading church, a childhood song popped into my mind.  It worked with my sermon about Jesus’ parable of the sower from Matthew’s account. Can you imagine God sowing seeds like a jolly farmer? God is like the sower who uses a ridiculous method to scatter seeds. There’s God, frolicking along, not worried about what kind of terrain on which the abundance of seed land. Imagine Oprah Winfrey and her joyfully anticipated giveaways – “Seeds for you, and seeds for you, and seeds for EVERYBODY!”  There goes God, frolicking along.

Anyway, the song in my head seemed appropriate. 

“Everyday, lambs at play,  in the fields where lilies grow.

 Frisk about, in and out, they are  happy, so!

Jesus’ little lambs are we, and he loves us, you and me. 

As we share in his care, we will happy be.”

Frolicking lambs across fields of plenty. That’s God’s picture of us. We mustn’t forget how it feels to frolic.

My depressed mind is clinging to the wealth of blessings from yesterday. Congregants indulged my need to sing said song.  I held a baby at coffee time, unbidden. He was placed in my lap. Bare toes, soft hair, that milky smell. That alone made the day a winner.

I was invited out to lunch with a couple of matriarch types and another ‘youngster’ like me. A lady in her 90ies DROVE us to a fairly new local restaurant I hadn’t been to yet.  The staff were lovely. The ladies at my table knew EVERYONE there and anyone more that entered. They laughed and shared their secrets with me (I think they were confessions). The trust, the fun loving, and the community felt like a good frolic.  We NEED each other. God is so, so good.

This bout of depression may last a while. By God’s grace, I’ll SURVIVE. I’m grateful for the ability to pull goodness into the deep pit. It will mingle with my Godspark and keep me company until I rise up again.

12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:12-13

Durably Disordered

In June of 2015 my daughter (the younger of my twins) was eleven years old.  We were camping and had just come back from a difficult visit to the camp store.  Stuff happened.  I was irritated by the onlookers and wrote the following on Facebook:

“My daughter suffers from selective mutism, social anxiety, learning delays, and unidentified behavioural disorders.  I stood beside her in the public camp parking lot as she lay on the pavement and loudly invited anyone to run her over … Because her mother doesn’t care.  ‘We’ don’t love her or want anything good for her.  ‘We’ are the worst parents. 
She proceeded to punch me until I couldn’t breathe.
You all saw it.
Don’t judge her. Don’t take it personally when she won’t look at you or talk to you.
This is a very real mentally disordered reaction to not getting the toy she wanted from the store and simply from being around strangers.  Your eyes on her make her anxious, and she assumes you want something from her.  Many things set her off.  Sometimes, she chooses fright, freeze, or flee.  This time, she chose to fight.  It happens often.  It’s devastating.  If you encounter us again, please give us the space to deal with it.  Prayers and love are welcome.
Don’t tell us how to parent.  Reserve judgment.  We are doing the best we can to do right by her.  Awareness is Everything.”

I received a lot of sympathy posts.  It just made me angry with myself for trying to protect my image of proper parenting.  Nobody needed an explanation.  My own personality disorder switched on and made me fight, too.   

I don’t know what it is like to be my daughter.  She, however, identifies with me.  She sees me get flustered, sweaty, angry, and popping pills.  We normalize each other’s behaviour.  It’s a daily struggle for everyone who lives with us. The pressures of life weigh heavily upon anyone who is mentally ill or somehow neurodiverse as well as for caregivers.  Mental illness is common, but my daughter says she often feels strange and alienated. Some days she feels like she should never have been born. Other days are tolerable. Once in a while, she has a happy day. We celebrate those moments. 

She began medication for anxiety, depression, and selective mutism when she was nine.  It was a hard decision.  I loved her spunk, bounciness, brightness, creativity, and  joie de vivre.  We were terrified that we would lose those beautiful parts of her personality.  It did change her.  I can only describe it as a kind of numbing.   Her intense emotions were replaced with a void of unfeeling. Her expressive body movements and her voice became less marked.  As the years wore on, we added Autism Spectrum Disorder to her greatest hits list.  Looking back, it all makes sense.  Cradle to nineteen – she has quirks that make her as unique as she is complicated.  She is a fabulous artist and extremely knowledgeable about insects, animals, and the natural world.  

I’m writing this after a couple of hours with the Newfoundland ponies that my friend at Poppy’s Haven so generously allows my twins and I to interact with.  Today my daughter wasn’t feeling her best.  Whenever she overextends her effort to be social, she manifests physical symptoms.

Oh, but the smiles!  Oh, but the sound of her voice!  Oh, but the delight she took in caressing, grooming, and whispering to the ponies!  It was so great for both girls.  Combined, the three of us are a walking ball of tension and anxiety.  Not today though, nope.  We even visited with my friend’s Newfoundland dog.  What a beauty.  He sparked much conversation.  

Today I caught a glimmer of the brightness I rarely see since starting my daughter’s meds.  We are so blessed to have a safe place for her to enjoy and practice being herself.  I am forever grateful.

Please. Help us normalize mental health.  Talk about it and fight against the stigma.

My Can Of Worms

What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?

What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?

For the sake of harmony, the first thing I would let go of is the need to have the LAST WORD.  Good or bad, it doesn’t matter.  I’m not sure if I’m balanced enough to pull it off.

Letting go is easily one of the hardest things anyone with a personality disorder struggles with.   I have been categorized by my professional mental health POSSE as a textbook example of someone living with Borderline Personality Disorder.  I was not awarded that title until the occasion of my midlife crisis. Ahem. Sniff. 

I’m fine, REALLY. Actually, the diagnosis made A WHOLE LOT OF sense of A WHOLE LOT OF chaos and personal behaviours that I had A WHOLE LOT OF trouble forgiving myself for.  BPD was the answer I needed to take control of my life. HURRAH HURRAH!

My unique BPD diagnosis reveals that I have a preoccupied attachment style that sports high anxiety and fear of abandonment. Relationships are intense or avoided. I need to feel approved and accepted by others. This is complicated for a pastor, BUT HEY, why not add more people and more responsibility to my life? I mean, I’m uncomfortable anyway. 

People like me have an internal push and pull to be close while fearing being hurt and abandoned. My BPD type is Petulant and Destructive. I am quickly annoyed and frustrated, and I tend to interrupt. I am both humble and inflexible.  HUH? I know, right? In addition, I act without thinking, I have a high risk of hurting myself, and generally saturate myself in negative self-talk that leads to body dysmorphia, restrictive eating, as well as binging.

I can’t dismiss my mental health conditions, but I can benefit from some serious self-awareness.  I have to let go of thinking I can handle this all by myself.

Enter  IFS – Internal Family Systems Therapy. This is the only kind of therapy that works for me, and I’ve tried PLENTY. Here’s how it works: 

think of all your internal parts/voices/urges as you would a family. They might include a protector, a peacekeeper, an angry one, a left out one, etc.etc. IFS uses the terms Firefighters, Exiles, and Managers.   All parts are relative to your actual SELF.  I like the Christianized version that designates the self as one’s soul.  I always call this my GODSPARK.  It is everything your parts need to be in harmonious union.

Using IFS language, harmony refers to blending, a suitable arrangement of parts that fosters peace, balance, and equilibrium.

YUP. That’s quite a can of worms to reflect with, there… 

Are we talking about harmony without or within? Pastor Me appreciated a Bible verse that was read this Sunday.  In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes,

15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Romans 7:15 NRSV

I hope that I will let go of shame, blame  fear, anger, negativity, and being so hard on myself.  I hate it. I hope to grow into understanding and start doing what I know is right and what I want to do in order to live lovingly and productively for my family, my church, and myself.

Until then, let’s say I could let go of the TV remote for the sake of harmony tonight and leave it at that.

Peace friends.

A Sibling’s experience of tragic death.

My brother and his son.

My oldest brother would have been fifty-five years alive on July 4th.  He died by suicide in 2012. Eleven years later, I find it hard to express how it affected me and continues to weigh on my being.  

His only child, a son, turned sixteen this year.  He and his mother daily face the stark reality of my brother’s death. I have the LUXURY of distance. I can choose to avoid the pain of it, at least temporarily.

His death demarcates the EXACT moment my parents began to visibly and mentally age.  They were in their mid seventies then, enjoying retirement and grandparenthood. A wonderful life stage. For a time, their loss numbed their energy and emotional availability for the rest of us, the sibling survivors, and our families. Our relationships have been forever altered.

The night IT happened, my second oldest brother called me in the middle of the night.  We had a very strange conversation. I wasn’t really awake. I wasn’t aware of the time and tried to sound like it was just an ORDINARY call.  But it wasn’t. It was surreal. My brother, on the other end of the phone, was clearly not himself. It took the rest of the night for our words to translate into a small hint of understanding that my oldest brother was ACTUALLY DEAD.

I spent that first day sitting at the computer, watching all the messages stream in on Facebook, where I’d unceremoniously dumped the news.  I was too overwhelmed to do anything else.

I did not see the place where it happened. I did not have the opportunity to go through my brother’s things. I didn’t even see his body (only his wife identified him). He was cremated. I arrived TOO LATE to be a part of those moments. We’d had to make many arrangements for a long road trip with young children and an uncertain date of return..

I did get to go with my disoriented father to “PICK HIM UP” when the funeral home said he was “READY”.  Dad got lost on the way. He pulled into a fire station to get directions. Irrelevant details. Everything was irrelevant. We were stunned and enduring what we thought were necessities. We were moving like puppets with no self resolve, through what felt like someone else’s nightmare.

When I first saw my mother, she hugged me, tearfully saying, “This doesn’t happen to OUR family”. After the funeral, my father said to my sister, brother and I, “Don’t any of you PULL anything LIKE this on us again.”  Their words have remained in my ear as my mental health struggles play out and my own family’s difficulties have evolved. What Mark opened up (that was his name, MARK,) was a Pandora’s box of all the things that were NOT talked about in our family.  We knew my brother was a recovering alcoholic. We knew he took medication for mental illness. We knew he’d been a psychiatric in-patient. WE KNEW. 

I always worried he’d get killed doing something wild like rock climbing or from a grizzly bear attack. An accident was probable (a gruesome, unintentional death would have, perhaps, been easier for us, I don’t know).  I wasn’t prepared for his death by his own hand.

I held what was my brother in an urn on my lap. That’s the closest we’d been in many years.  We’d always  had a complicated relationship. I feared him as much as I adored him. Clutching his urn felt like a violation on my part. It was a much needed confirmation of his death.  However, I wondered for months whether it was really him in that jar. Maybe he faked his own death? He was smart like that.

During the ensuing months, I morbidly pored over the internet for information and descriptions of the “how’s” and the “what’s” of his method of dispatch.  I think he wanted to feel it, to know it was happening. You know, to be sure. I wonder if he changed his mind when it was too late?

I understand that he was in so much emotional agony that death seemed his only way to relief. Maybe he didn’t want to die, but it is certain he needed the pain to stop. The health system had worn out their resources without giving him peace. 

He loved his son more than anything. It doesn’t make sense that he would leave him or believe his son or any of us would be better off without him.  How could such an intelligent, creative man think so little of himself?  It is simply irrevocably tragic.

My faith tells me that God is not the source of our suffering. God walks this road with us and leaves no one alone. Suicide does not deter God’s love.  I take comfort in knowing God was with Mark, even if he wasn’t aware of this truth.  I believe God wept for my brother and received him into all peace.

We don’t remember him for that terrible day or his final desperate act for relief. We remember him for his life, and we honour him by living out  what we loved about him.  

I empathize deeply with his pain. I am angry with him, and with the powers that be that failed him. I am ashamed for not supporting him in his struggle.  I know now.  I will do everything I humanly can to make sure my children, my husband, and all whom I love really know it. I will tell them how important they are and how worthy they are to live. I will take my meds and engage in self care to ward off the lure of that horrible surrender.

Please take good care.  Be gentle with yourself and make lots of room to hold space for the ones you hold dear.

Me and Mark.

Love is a Rough Routine

Animals are medicine. At my house, our schedules revolve around the needs of our pets. In our family of six, five of us live with anxiety ranging from mild to debilitating. Habits are very important to our feelings of safety and calm.

Our twins are 19. One will likely remain a dependent for life. The other will be slow to launch. We’ve chosen to make the most of any goodness we can provide them. They can have whatever pets they want.

The dog is mine. I couldn’t do this without her. The time of day varies, but she and I enjoy daily walks with or without the company of my girls. I also take dedicated time to love on her. She expects it in the evening, especially when she gets on the bed at day’s end. I swear she has superpowers.

We feed and clean the guinea pigs twice a day. Before I go to work and before we settle in to watch a bit of TV at night. They are super cute and super disgusting. It’s like having an indoor farm. I do the bulk of the work because they technically belong to my daughter who lives with severe OCD. She loves them so much. (And many other critters we don’t need to talk about now).

Gerbils are my second twins’ entire life. She has a few online contacts. She’s done with in-person school and will slowly finish her diploma virtually. Her day is her gerbils. I participate regularly with their floor time and cleaning. We suffered the deaths of her first gerbils of four years. It pretty near destroyed both of us. You wouldn’t understand unless you knew them. So bright, intelligent, and friendly.

There is NOTHING worse than watching your child as she comforts her heart as it dies. Months later, her heart burst again as the remaining gerbil died on her lap.

She was thrown into an abyss of loss. She didn’t know how to order her days without her precious fur babies.

We eventually got 3 young gerbils from the same litter. It took a bit – allowing them to use the sacred things of her firsts, but the relationship blossomed, and she was almost back to herself.

The gerbils are coming to maturity and becoming more territorial. To her horror, just randomly, totally out of the blue, one gerbil picked a fight with another, a ball of angry rodents in a death grip. She got them apart. She got bitten for the first time ever. By God, I was sure it was the end, both covered in blood. This is just so MUCH.

Thanks be to God, they will live. We’ve separated them 2 and 1. Our routine has doubled. Still, it is her life’s work to honour them. She finds comfort in talking to breeders and providing the best care.

Domestic animals are a blessing, for sure. Loving them, as with loving anyone, is risky business. Anything could happen. Love is always worth it. (Even spending hundreds of dollars on veterinary care for rodents!)

I pray about our animals as much or even more than I do for people. It’s the last moments of my day – the most consistent habit. I pray my children will be comforted, strengthened by their experiences, and blessed with new joy. I pray for the dog, the cat, the guinea pigs, and the sweet little gerbils to recover, to live long and be well, and to gladden the hearts of my complicated family. Love is rough, but God is good. Always.