emotions

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.

Dispirited Deliberation. Faith & Depression

I was out shopping for yarn the other day (it was July 20th – I’m crocheting my first dress), and my daughter took the picture you see above.  It’s JULY.  I’m just not prepared to shift to Halloween. 

In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving first.  I’m not even ready to think about the Fall holidays. Seeing this had a hugely negative impact on my day, my mood, and my view of the world.  What is wrong with people?  I sound like Charlie Brown (I often feel like him, too).  All this commercialization, this rush to start the party early, leaves little room to appreciate the liminal space, the time between the now and the not yet.

Please take a second to breathe. Inhale, 2,3,4,5. Hold 2,3,4,5. Exhale 2,3,4,5. Notice your breath, your beating heart, each muscle, tendon, and joint.  Breathe in again. Feel the rush of newly oxygenated blood pulse through your veins.

THIS, THIS IS our personal miracle. Every breath depends on the mechanics of our body, intricately laced together and given life by the energy of our great SOURCE.  For me, this translates into GOD.

In church today, I preached on Jesus’ parable about wheat and weeds growing together, treated EQUALLY, only to be separated by the owner of the field at the harvest.  We each have a tangled up bunch of weeds and fruit in our hearts.  On the last day, all that causes sin in the world and inside of us will be burned away as we come into the full GOODNESS intended for us.  

Waiting sucks.

I’m prone to depression and I’ve had a hard week.  Smiling on the outside.  Dispirited within.  Preaching victory. Living in torment.

How do you suppose we can be both Spirit-filled and dispirited?  If God is dwelling in me, why am I so miserable? It doesn’t make sense. Suffering doesn’t make sense.  I know my suffering pales in the face of the war, disaster, and fatal prognosis endured by others. But I’m a long-suffering woman. That’s what I’ve concluded, and I come from a long line of the same.

Long suffering has changed what I believe about God. God makes me extremely frustrated.

The hope I’m supposed to glory in just isn’t realized fast enough. Why must we ENDURE life rather than LIVE it with abundant blessing?

Have you heard of Job? (J-oh-b).  He’s a Biblical Old Testament Prophet who could write the book on enduring pain. In a very short time, he lost everything. His 10 children were suddenly killed.  All of his livestock was also killed. Then, yup, all of his servants were killed. At the same time, he lost his wealth, his health (he was covered in boils), and the support of his grieving wife. His friends blamed him for his suffering. “You must’ve really made God angry. Sucks to be you, man, ” they said.

Like his friends, Job thought that all suffering was divine punishment for sin. Job hadn’t sinned – but boy did he suffer – not for punishment, but simply because pain is in the human experience.

Why the *!#*!#! doesn’t God fix this?  God’s wisdom is far beyond mine. Like Job, I can make the choice to trust God and draw strength from that divine spark in my heart.  I can choose to persevere. I’m a stubborn one.  I will continue to voice my disapproval of the vacuous gods of consumerism.  

Yup. I am despondent, I’m melancholy.  God didn’t defend the reality of pain or explain why it remains in the order of things. God only tells Job to have faith. Be patient, live, love, and leave the rest to the divine.

Deep breath. 2,3,4 5

Good grief, Is this enough?

God, I hope so.

“And now my soul is poured out within me;
    days of affliction have taken hold of me. The night racks my bones,
    and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.  My inward parts are in turmoil and are never still;
    days of affliction come to meet me. I go about in sunless gloom;
    I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. My lyre is turned to mourning and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.

Job 30:16-17, 27-28, 31 NRSV

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” 

Job 13:15

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.

Those dreamy blues

Write about your first crush.

After all these years, I can still feel the flutter of excitement in my gut that my six year old brain thought was true love. He wore brown plaid with brown pants and a white ball cap atop a mop of brown hair. He had the darkest, prettiest eyelashes and the dreamiest big blue eyes. Golly. He and one of my girlfriends headed up a game every recess where they were our ‘parents’ and we had to listen to them. She got to wear his white hat. I wanted to wear that hat.

My house was on his way home. He often stopped there to play with me (and my brothers and their friends), especially in the winter. He wore a dark gray parka with light gray fur around the hood that got covered with snow as we rolled around the yard.

Once, his mother arranged a play date for us at his house. It was awkward. A lot of sitting on the couch in silence.

I moved the next year. I called him my boyfriend for several years. Young love. I wonder what ever happened to him? Sigh.