mental health

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.

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.

Moody Mess

😊😬😐😔😪😶

At my monthly check in with my psychiatrist, I told him that my mood has actually been OKAY for a while. It WAS true. I saw him while I was still riding a wave of adrenaline after a surprisingly positive weekend among the people of the church I minister to. 

With all my mood and personality disorders and my frequent depression, it is really something when I wholeheartedly feel hope, love  and connection with them. Having a good, relaxed time socially is always a challenge. But I was feeling it.

Maybe it’s because my ‘Mommy senses’ tingled when I held the new grandson of parishioners who are integral to our faith family. A measure of their joy rubbed off on me and I am still so thankful.

Yeah!  I held a perfect bundle of baby in my arms! I have longed for the pre-pandemic ease in which our interactions with the most vulnerable among us were not blanketed in fear. What a gift to count his tiny fingers and toes, to feel the warmth and weight of him and to marvel, to bask in the created perfection on my lap! God is good.

This was at a summer social so graciously hosted by members at their home.  The sound of the giant Jenga blocks falling, the giggles echoing, the joy and exuberance of the children diving, somersaulting, and splashing in the pool.  The watery trails of drips that followed them to their towels and snacks was nostalgic of when my own kids were small.  I found it deeply satisfying to witness.

Sitting together with leisurely chatting, roasting marshmallows singing together around a fire, not to mention the perfect weather was just fantastic! God is good.

The next day followed with our Cemetery Decoration service. I was overcome by the turnout and hospitality shown to the bereaved. The mingling of relaxed laughter and vulnerable,  unhidden tears was breathtaking.

How the sun, the breeze, the great outdoors, so comfortably provided us with a fittingly natural cathedral to do the work of remembering together. We stood on the holy ground of grief and faith together. Our church family graciously helping one another, teaming up to unpack an unrehearsed, gorgeously human service full of organic, heart felt love and tenderness. God is good.

So WHY, as I rode to my appointment did that familiar nagging ache of sadness and hopelessness clutch at my gut?  Believing in God’s love for me and the goodness so evident around me DOES NOT fix my mental health.

It’s weird, but after each high, I seem to go right into a low. I came home from that appointment and sucked back my extra pills that are designed to curb the nagging feeling.

It doesn’t negate the wonderful feelings of the weekend but it does stir up anger and questions I’d rather not dwell on.

Onward and upward.

You’re not alone.

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