Losing light

Robin Williams’ release into the universe has dramatically effected an entire global wave of mourning, perhaps felt most acutely by we who struggle with self-hate, painful memories, suicidal thoughts. Radical acceptance is the only thing buoying some of us through. It is what it is. What it is? A horrible tragedy, a loss to us all, launching a collective scream into the wilderness of the world, begging for help and change. If his desperation does not release from us a communal wave of our innate goodness, our individual opportunity to heal ourselves, each other and the world…we will continue to lose the unique human life light of our brightest, most beautiful, complex and necessary brothers and sisters. We are all made up of the stars, and none of our matter is lost, only transmuted to something less visible to us in our realm of reality. Robin contributed a beautiful verse; but now, for the rest of us, the powerful play must go on without him. 

O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?  
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
(Walt Whitman)

*Reblogged from my new DBT blog, Damn Marsha!

Abandoned

They stand like witnesses to a lost era. Solid brick, lines still nice and square. I wonder if new floors and windows would be all they need, these abandoned houses. Who used to live there? Why did they leave? Why did no one buy a nice 2 story brick home? What led to the boards and the warning placards and the decay?

I suppose I could ask myself these same questions. Long ago, I chose to abandon myself just like an old brick row house that had long since passed it's purpose. I left emotions and being and conviction behind and I followed the paths others had broken ahead of me. I suppose that's how I became a nurse instead of a doctor: a PhD prepared professor instead of a clinical degree; how I became a mother quite by accident but slowly and surely let those responsibilities slide into the abyss of incapacity and unwillingness.

I sit in front of the 16th floor window.  The one that, ironically, still opens out to the street. The pavement glistens with rain many floors below and I am mesmerized. Somehow in this hotel room, accusations and invalidation have taken root once again; somehow, nothing else seems to matter.

But tomorrow WILL contain happy moments, carefree moments, even moments of satisfaction and fulfillment.  I WILL make it. My brain has tried to kill me before, and so far it doesn't fritz out badly enough that I lose myself completely.

So I walk away from the window and decide this is not about my own ugliness or failures at all - it's about those pathways in my brain that were ridden so often the pavement is wearing off. It's those slippery pathways I slide inexorably into, sometimes because of a single thought ("I'm not good enough" or "my place in this person's life is meaningless").

Today I'm paving new pathways. Today I refuse to slip into old patterns. When the ugly thoughts come, yes, I still think them. But somewhere mid-thought I realize I'm headed down that pathway again, and I stop and reassure myself and climb back up the hill to self-compassion. My therapist says eventually it will work. Eventually, if I train my brain to toss those useless, fictional thoughts, slowly I will go free from the prison of my own mind. Maybe someday, my brain won't try to kill me anymore.

Utopian? Yes. Unrealistic? Yes. Worth trying? Yes.

Acceptance: OneWord365

"Radical acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is.”

― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

I sing the words under my breath as the kids jam in the backseat: I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed, Get along with the voices inside of my head… I ask them about monsters, and they say they've never seen any. I wish I couldn't picture mine so clearly. It was next to my bed, not under it. Inside of my head now. I've internalized the voice of the abuser and trauma-driven self-talk rattles around on loop-repeat as my modus operandi.

New Year's Eve, and I'm thinking about the monster. Trying to get a visual. I sit down to draw, sketch a little girl walking in the darkness covered by a cape. The monster grows giant in charcoal strokes as I draw in the shadows behind her. A little girl runs away with dirty hair. A grown woman walks with head down and hands in pockets. There is another reflection, skewed, elongated. Most people can't see the cloud of thoughts I carry with me everywhere. I can feel them buzzing, like exploding sizzles of color in pastels bursting over me. A personal fireworks show whenever I am lost in thought.

Just a week ago, I got lost in the sandstorm of pain, the inevitable tide of emotion in the wake of trauma. I lost myself so completely I tried to lose myself forever. In the midst of the memory-driven panic, something inside of me must have wanted to be found. I called my therapist on her help line, and she sent someone to find me. I spent a few days recovering in the hospital.

This, then, is my one resolution for 2014: stop running - from myself, from my pain, from my past.

I once thought my goal for each day was wisdom. This is too lofty for baby steps toward healing. What I search for instead is mindfulness: the ability to stay in the present moment, whatever that moment is. Keep your mind out of the past and off the future so you can live fully in the now. Which, after all, is the only moment any of us are promised. Mindfulness helps me believe that I'm not in danger when everything in my physical body is tuned to high alert, a knee-jerk reaction that doesn't include forethought. I see other survivors, like me, who jump at sudden noises, squirm in chairs while they try to stay still, pace instead of sit, fidget, gesture, everything a big puff of smoke meant to confuse and intimidate the enemies that are no longer there.

I see my past mistakes as signs of weakness, stupidity, naiveté. What I forget is the courage it took to stand back up each time. The gritting of the teeth as I look terror in the eye and walk on. The fortitude to get out of bed and face the day when you live in fear of being maimed, torn apart, desecrated, destroyed.

This is the year I will accept the past, one memory at a time. I cannot change it; there is no hope for a better past. Acceptance, admitting the truth - that's the only way back out of the darkness that threatens to consume me. I am learning that to accept something as true does not mean you agree with it, like it, want it, or support it. It just means you are saying: this was. This happened. To me. I couldn't stop it, I hated it, it burned my very flesh and altered the development of my mind and personality. This is how I plan to cut the chains that bind me to the trauma and swallow my ability to cope, believe, trust, love, empathize, accept my self as I am now.

I always struggle to pick a word that I want to define my year. I picked Hebrew twice but my love affair with that language is definitely over. In 2012, I picked "succeed". That, more than the words before, became a solid foundation on which to build the next 365 days: my dissertation was approved; I graduated with my PhD; cancer went into remission; homeschooling blossomed; I landed the job of my dreams. It was a really good year - minus the depression and anger and all they brought with them. For 2013, I chose the word "less". I was panicking that money and status and privilege could destroy us. Ironically, I thought of less in terms of "less me, more god". Instead, I ended the year with less faith and somehow, fewer questions. Less soul clutter, less mind pollution, less bondage. Sometimes the heart knows better than the mind what is necessary: last year, it was not less of me, but more. I needed to clear my head of the absorbed misperceptions and negative beliefs. I needed to come to terms with myself, and I did. I ended the year feeling more love toward my self than ever before, a sense of adventure as I began to explore, for the very first time, who I am and what aspects of myself I liked.

This year, I tossed around words like "sophrosyne" - a Greek word often simply translated as prudence, meaning the state of a healthy mind, characterized by self-control, moderation and a deep sense of self. I landed for awhile on a related Greek word, "metanoia" - the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life. I considered run-of-the-mill English words like change, being, healing, identity, self, understanding. There were some more heady terms like metamorphosis, transformation, equanimity, mindfulness, intuition, authenticity, unafraid, justice, diversify.

I landed again and again, in the synonyms of the words I pondered, on acceptance. I couldn't get away from it, and for good reason - whether it is accepting the past or accepting myself or accepting my limitations and mistakes, I definitely need more of it. And so I landed, for a few days, on this word. It grew on me. It seemed to encompass all the other goals for the year in one simple term. I write my list of goals from this singular perspective: that acceptance will mean more health, happiness, balance and beauty in our lives, my life.

This year, I will strive to:
1. accept myself
2. accept my past, trauma and all
3. accept the good things in my past as well
4. accept my life circumstances
5. accept my burdens, fears, and failures
6. accept my family, one member at a time, just as they are
7. accept others - students, coworkers, friends, strangers
8. accept ambiguity and uncertainty
9. accept that some answers will always elude me

Have you ever thought about selecting a word that speaks to the personality you want your year to take on? Or perhaps describes a goal you will work on, a concept you are trying to understand, or something you want to change or maintain? Join me at OneWord365 if you wish to read more stories or contribute your own…

The road ahead

Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted. (Sylvia Plath)

I've fallen for the promise of a mirage a hundred times. Ran toward it, only to have it escape me like a handful of smoke or dreams. And so I've learned to live here in the now instead of staring at the road ahead. I suppose graduate school trained me to always look ahead - and of course, work demands it, too. Life demands it. But not every moment of every day.

I used to daydream while I worked. My mind rarely came back although my hands were hard at work. I watch my students, in the lab practicing skills, in clinical helping real people. It's all so new to them, they are completely absorbed by the mental part of the task before them.

I teach them life is messy, even nursing. It's better to make a mess on the floor and clean it up later than it is to endanger a patient. I think this goes for all of life: people, relationships, they are always paramount. When I was a young mom, I had to have a perfectly clean house to have a friend over. How many visits did I miss because I was focused on the mess on the floor instead of the face of the person begging for my attention?

The children come with when we go to the lab on weekends. They take blood pressures, they do CPR, they like to put tubes in and out of the "fake people". It is their favorite place at the university (well, maybe 2nd only to the vending machines). They are here in the now but also hard at work on their futures.

I am on a road to change. I can see the vista in front of me is quite different than I imagined. And the mirage? Yes, I'm tempted to run pell-mell toward it, leaving all else behind. But this time I'm wiser, older. I'm walking slowly, testing it out. Is the freedom and peace I seek really there in front of me? Or is it perhaps beside me in these moments, just waiting for me to notice.

You, with the knife in your hand:

Please stop. Just for a moment. Read. You are not alone. Someday the sneers will turn to cheers as you bring others deep into your life, as you reveal your struggles. I know you can't be brave right now. I know how badly life can hurt. But maybe, just maybe, after reading my story, you can cry instead of die. 

{this is written for Suicide Prevention Week and may contain triggers}

Amy stands deep out in the icy surf of Lake Superior, her heart overflowing with joy as her muscles remember body surfing in the Atlantic Ocean so many times before. She spots the big waves and beckons her siblings to prepare. We are stared at - partly because we didn't plan ahead and the kids are in the lake fully dressed. Partly because no one here has ever seen kids body surf like this.

They are carefree and oblivious to the stares. They are looking out into the deep blue for the next rideable wave. This is what I want for them - so intense is their search for joy, beauty, truth, light, justice, compassion, mercy, grace, adventure, and wisdom that their eyes never waver from the path ahead.

My mother and father taught me this. There are memories of being comfortable being different: reading a college economics textbook in 5th grade that I brought everywhere with me; wearing a quirky hat collection all through high school; pouring my heart into art and poetry and music until I was in a different world myself - a world I was happy in.

Somewhere along the way, someone taught me to be self-conscious. I remember the whispered insults - "awkward", "too big for your britches", "lesbo", "weirdo", "too smart for your own good", "curious George", "giant", "you look like a boy", "nasal voice", "odd", "you don't play well with others". The paramount sneer on the playground, the stage, the backyards, the bike rides, the 4-H meetings, ball games, homeschooler playdates: "You'll never fit in; who do you think you are, anyway? Better than us?"

If only they'd known that the exact opposite was true: I was afraid I would never be good enough. For four long years, I hid completely. How many of us didn't in middle school? I became as quiet as a church mouse in groups. I continued being a leader only because my mother trained me to be. I pretended to be dumb, but random facts kept leaping off my tongue before I could haul them back in. I was an outsider, a lurker, always on the periphery and never in the circle. Many, many others share this piece of my story.

I've often wondered why I've been dogged by depression and suicidal thoughts since I was 10. Why did so many others weather bullying better than I? It wasn't until recently that I began to understand. Injuries make you vulnerable, especially to further injury. And I had a wounded soul.

It wasn't just words that had wounded me. It was derisive torment of a physical and psychological nature. I will never forget the twisted grin on my abuser's face when I experienced the most pain, the most shame, defeat and blood and filth coating my tongue. This. It started me out on poor footing, it started me out bandaged and bloodied, it started me out believing that angry and evil words directed at me meant physical torment was only moments away. I remember the visceral reaction I had to the taunts of others after her - tightening of all my muscles, the surge of fear in my stomach, the cold sweat, the dry mouth, the clammy palms, the sudden separation of body and mind as I drifted off into the sky to distance myself from the pain to come.

And with the surge of pain in those years came the suicidal thoughts. They trace their history all the way back to my childhood. It wasn't that I wanted to be dead. It wasn't that I wanted to leave the people I loved. It wasn't that I wanted to experience more pain at my own hand.

I just wanted - want- the pain of life, the inescapable pain, to be over and done.

When I was 10, I didn't complete it by protective grace alone.
And when I woke up, I couldn't try again because of my parents, my brothers.

When I was 17, I didn't do it because I held onto hope that college would be different.

The attempts that did come were usually alcohol-soaked. Occasionally stone cold sober, but out of body, my mind careening through the black hole of open space without substance to control it's flight.

When I was 21, I didn't complete it because a friend saved me.

When I was 28, I didn't do it because cancer and hopelessness wasn't reason enough.

When I was 30, I didn't do it because I looked into my children's eyes.

When I was 31, I didn't complete it because there was a holy cacophany of friends and loved ones shouting from the rooftops that I was loved, I was enough, I was desperately needed. Their voices drowned out the jeers of others for a short while.

Now, at 34, sometimes it's my counselor's voice echoing in the chambers of the mind, "You can't do this to your babies." Sometimes it's the verses quoted by friends. Sometimes it's a note from my Papa and sometimes it's my mother's voice on the phone. Sometimes it's the hope of a different life that fits my skin. Sometimes it's simply resolve. Sometimes it is knowing it is wrong. Sometimes it's out of pure defiance: I won't let you finish me, I won't let your words drive me to be someone I'm not.

Here I am. All 34 years of me, all the history of dark plans and nighttime soul riots, all the desperate prayers, all the bottles of pills and high places I've stood on the edge of, all the razors and all of the scars. I am begging you to find a reason not to. I know you have reasons not to - everyone does. Because each of us - however bent and bruised - we have a purpose. There is someone, somewhere, who will weep for decades if you take your own life. Maybe that person is still in your future. Will you give that up to stop the pain?

Hug someone.

Pick up the phone.

Go for a run.

Let yourself scream.

Be angry.

Be sad.

Be sorry.

Be brave.

Write it out.

Draw a picture.

Send an email.

Call a counselor.

Call a hotline.

Drive to a friend's house.

Take a cold shower.

Go look at the sky and ask your questions.

Tweet or Facebook for help and encouragement.

Say a prayer.
Ask for prayer.

Listen to some music.

Make a playlist that says what you can't.

Tell a relative.
Do something you love even if you don't feel like it.
Look at an old photo album.
Believe it will get better.

Don't hide.

Don't use substances to numb out.

Don't pretend you're fine.

Don't think you're alone.

Don't believe this is best for everyone.

Don't listen to the lies swirling through your brain.

Don't do it today - make a plan to wait 24 hours - then another 24.

Don't keep your weapons.

Don't be silent about your plans.

Don't be afraid of going to the hospital.

Don't be scared to take a break.

Don't try to wait it out alone.

Don't hold it in, bottle it up, or push it away.

Don't grin and bear it.

If I am the only person you know who can speak to those dark places inside of you, then write to me at gmthul@yahoo.com. Tell me your story. Beg for help. I will listen, I will bleed with you, I will speak truth. 

Don't end your story with a noose, a bloody bathroom, a shattered form at the bottom of a cliff. Don't spend your last hours vomiting and gasping for breath. Don't lose the last precious moments of the only life you have to a coma or a crash. Don't let your loved one or your friend see the sight of your choice - they will never recover. Do you want a closed casket funeral that leaves all who you leave with no sense of closure? Do you want them to always wonder what they could've done differently? Wishing they had somehow saved you?

One true thing, a reason I know from experience: there will come a day when you thank God you didn't go through with it. Even if there are more attempts after that day, it will come again - the day you're glad you're alive. And again. And again.

There will come a day when the pain will fade a little. There will come a day when the beauty of life is greater than the torture of it. There will come a day when you look back at all you would have foregone, and call your own life - your broken, battered, tear-soaked life - good.

This brilliant light is brighter than we would've known,

Without our darkness to prove it so.

Still, we can’t help but to examine it,

To add our question marks to periods.

At the foot of our bed, we found an envelope…

“You are enough.”

These little words, somehow they’re changing us.

“You are enough.”

So we let our shadows fall away like dust.

When we grew up,

Our shadows grew up too.

But they’re just old ghosts

That we grow attached to.

The tragic flaw is that they hide the truth.

That you’re enough.

I promise you’re enough.

____________________________________________________

This week the world focused on suicide prevention in an international campaign to raise awareness. By far the most beautiful and gut-wrenching piece written was posted on A Deeper Story by attempt survivor Luke Harms. His simple title, "Your Story is Worth Finishing", settled deeply into my hungry soul. Perhaps because the story of this life of mine is so important to me. Perhaps because I want all the suffering and struggling and fighting tooth and nail to mean something in the end - to lift someone else up, let them know they aren't alone, or to show the capacity of the human spirit for courage and love?

I thought I was going to stay away from Suicide Prevention Week. I avoided social media on the 10th, Suicide Prevention Day itself, and didn't follow any links to the statistics, the infographics, the blog posts, the trending Twitter hashtag. Because I am still very much in the fight for my life. Because the scars of the last mistake are barely healed. Because I didn't feel brave, strong, or stupid enough to expose myself to triggers when I am still fragile. But Luke's title grabbed me, and I read, tears streaming, and I thought, I cannot let this year pass. I cannot be silent on this topic. I hope this reaches the eyes of someone who needs it. Please pass it on to those who are struggling.

Speaking into the void

"The Premonition" (digital photomanipulation), Michael Vincent Manalo

There's a gulf between them and I, created by the detritus flooding out of my soul after years of being locked inside. Sometimes you hide in a cave so deep that you have nowhere else to throw your garbage, so you live with it. The door has been guarded by the armed guards of fear and shame and no one gets past them alive.

They say self-hatred is as old as sin. You can tell me not to feel it, but I'll just put it in hiding again. It's like a lifelong addiction that has consumed you: you don't see any way out because you've been surrounded for so long.

Can you throw it off if you come out of hiding? Or will coming out into the open just trigger a new kind of hiding? 

......................................

There are no small questions these days. Distract with work, the pool, the children, the housekeeping. The inner monologue keeps rolling. Doubt is a snowball tossed down a mountain and you are in the valley right in it's path. Huddle up in a ball against the pain and it will roll over you and carry you further away from joy.

Should one keep writing when it's this dark? Sometimes it feels like the only window of hope is the flourescent computer screen hovering over the keyboard in the deepest part of the night. Writing feels as selfish as everything else right now. 

Is it an encouragement to anyone to share this heavy grief?

Or is it time to shutter the doors on this space that was once so hopeful, where I've wrestled my demons and counted my joys and poured my soul out in front of the world. It's hard to know if there's an end to this tunnel because I can't yet see the light.

"Last"

Bouncing back

In the darkness of the soul, only the shadows of shame, grief, hopelessness are visible. Profiles of black against an unattainable light. The future appears as shrouded as the moment you are in now.

Time and again, I've sighed, resigned myself, and stepped back into the light. The living light. Grace is holding me by the hand, and mercy the tug of life's current around my ankles. You are never alone, He whispers. Each day is sprinkled more and more heavily with happiness. Laughter with my therapist. Sharing a joke with my kids. Yelling and screaming at my daughter's softball game, totally abandoned to the moment. A card full of encouragement from a friend of few words.

Each dark time is shorter. It's a massive amount of work, moving the mountain of those inhibited and unhealthy ways of coping and building a new mountain worthy of the foundation of Jesus' sacrifice. The old mountain spews it's shame and lies across the landscape of my life as the dynamite of hope blasts holes in it's edifice. It's as if she's saying, I won't go down without a fight. And who is it that speaks from that dark mountain of self-neglect, self-loathing, stubborness and sin? Evil is what speaks from there. The explosion of the dynamite of hope is God's thunderous answer to my own self-doubt. SHE IS MINE, He screams at the stubborn rocks. 

I am a woman of words. I carry my books in a bag that says, "I am God's idea. Please be nice." A talismen against those who would cruelly crush me again. Even the new letters etched on my shoulder are a forever tribute to this time of ultimate trust and testing: "Fear not. Only believe, and she shall be safe." (Luke 8:50) I finger the Latin - noli timere crede tantum et salva erit - remembrance of the pain of the tattoo gun piercing flesh a good analogy of the pain of the past 3 years.

Each time the sky grows black, I see the light at the end of the tunnel quicker - as the night grows deeper, the light grows, too. A light that is faint in full sun is brightest in the darkest hours of the night. He leans down and tilts my chin upward, reminding me that I am His daughter and protected and beloved even when it doesn't feel so. The light is blinding. Beautiful. Bewitching.

What am I building this new mountain of hope out of? I have a list of all the skills I've been taught using dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). Skills like these:

• Turn your mind (repentance)
• Teflon mind (refusing to listen to evil)
• Half-smile (a cheerful heart doeth good like a medicine)
• Accumulating positives (count your blessings)
• Coping ahead (stewardship)
• Mindfulness (do not worry about tomorrow)
• Wise mind (seek wisdom)
• Accepting reality (trusting an all-knowing God)

DBT has quite literally been used by God to save my life. If you are struggling with relentless self-doubt, depression, PTSD, or other mental health issues, you can find a trained counselor here. DBT was developed by a psychologist who spent most of her teens and 20s in mental institutions without any relief. She developed the skills herself and then began sharing them with the world. You can read Marsha Linehan's story here. DBT is one of the most proven therapy techniques available today, rigorously tested for multiple conditions using randomized controlled studies. For an introduction to what DBT is, read here. If you are interested in DBT, but wonder whether the skills taught are Biblical, please contact me and I will send you a list of Bible references demonstrating the Christian foundation for these skills.

Every moment is a fork in the road

I comfort myself with the fact that someday this day will be burned away: reduced to ashes or jewels. This crazy day. This hard day. This day of sadness and grief. This day of betrayal.

Anxiety dissipates as I recall that however this day came about - by the trickle down effect of my sin or someone else or none at all - God has either allowed it or willed it. This is the truth of trusting, that you accept your reality as it is and not how you wish it to be. You can accept what you hate, loathe, are afraid of, disagree with. Acceptance doesn't equal approval. But it does equal a modicum of peace for the soul. When you are willing to accept, you are no longer struggling to change, run from, or ignore whatever terrible or wonderful events occur.

Today is just a day, just one day in your story, and no matter what you did to get yourself in this position, it can be redeemed. The past is just that - the past: you cannot change it, only continue on the right path or turn from the wrong one. The present moment within our own selves - this is all we have control over. The past and the future elude our grip.

Credit

The light slants through the heavy hospital door: "Checks", whispers the phantom in scrubs who will be by every 15 minutes to prevent suicides. Luckily on the first night you're groggy from sedatives in the ER and you slide back into sleep like a warm blanket.

You steal a fork from your dinner tray and carefully fold it in a photo of your kids. Apparently they count the silver, too. From then on you eat in the dayroom with the TV blaring, the smells of all variety of disheveled persons and hospital food - and plastic eating utensils.

With the exception of the occasional manic bipolar patient, we are all recluses thrown together, prodded out of our rooms under protest for a litany of classes, groups, recreation. You're "voluntary" - here on your own free will, they say - so you can refuse, but on your first stay you learned that no progress means no discharge. And so you huddle, heads down, saying as few words as possible. You pitch in occasionally in a monotone, careful not to reveal emotion, say something - anything - to let the others off the hook for a moment.

Twice a day, the nurses walk in pairs, like friends, conspirators. Reporting off to the oncoming staff about your good behavior, bad behavior. You try on a plastic smile, nod, compliant - compliance is key. Most of them are helpers, but many are tired. Worn down from wrestling the aggressive ones, trying to ferret out the liars before they can hurt themselves. Always trying to be a step ahead, while still managing med passes, charting, doctor's orders, maybe a moment or two - precious moments - of compassion. They listen to your story when you need to speak of it, they smile when you need encouragement, give space when it's needed and a quick touch if it will be accepted.

It seems like a revolving door. For a while, you're in and out, then the "out" stretches longer and longer. Once and again, back you go, and some of the faces are familiar and some are new.

You do the therapy, the meditation, the thought policing, the occasional giving in. When you do, back through the metal detectors, into the ill fitting pajamas without strings, into the padded room. You worry about confidentiality. Will those who care for you and those there with you hold their tongues? Who will hear you've been here again? They say the stigma is gone, nothing like it was 30 years ago. But you've met the nurses who don't care to care for someone whose ills are self-inflicted. You've seen the looks when one of your scars is noticed. Worse perhaps are those not versed in broken brains who don't understand the social anxiety, the pauses mid-sentence, the staring over their shoulder. Those who think if they just say it long enough and loud enough, you'll change your mind: believe you're worth it.

You get to know addicts, schitzophrenics, manics and those stultifyingly depressed. Sometimes their bodies and stories are stereotypical - the bleary eyes, unkempt facade, a string of group homes and homelessness. You come to recognize the failed suicides by their dead eyes, you become familiar with the timeline of an addict's detoxification. But most are just like you - "normal". They look so normal. You wonder if you do, too. If there weren't still stigma, why have we all learned to hide so well?

The days blend together along with growing unrest to resume normalcy. Yet there's no denying it - you came in sick as a dog and about as cooperative as a cornered badger. By the time you leave, it has happened once again - the slow, incremental healing. Your nurse reports she saw you smile today. It's been days since you were restrained in lockdown. Soon you'll get your clothes back - the ones with rivets and strings. You'll walk out like an animal from hibernation, blinking in the non-fluorescent light. You look back at the brick prison with the safety glass windows they call a "behavioral health unit". The resentment fades in the fresh air.

After all, it did help. You've agreed to life again.

Can you live these days shut up in the hospital for the glory of God? Does mental illness somehow disable His grace? You learn to find small ways to join life: share a verse with someone crying; a look of knowing with the man who says he feels caged. You practice repentance whenever the dark thoughts take over - turning away and walking away from death and toward life.

Isn't this the essence of the Christian life? Lived out in the minutiae of depression? We are all turning from death toward life all day long. When you choose to serve; when you choose to pray; when you choose to agree to this day; when you take joy; when you pour out your sorrow; when you love and when you live and when you return to what is right.

May it all be for precious stones, may we trade the wood, hay and stubble of our own stubborn path for acceptance of the truth of our lives.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.   (I Corinthians 3:11-15)

You must go through it

The wild cherries shiver with anticipation of summer in the cold spring wind, their blossoms a white shock above their dark trunks. Bluebirds fly back and forth between the wild long grass in the field and the sanctuary of the blossoming trees. Their song drifts up to my porch swing, and I smile, closing my eyes and tilting face to receive the warmth of the sun.

There is no perfect day, just like there's no perfect life. Clouds roll in and the cherries falter in the darkness of the coming storm. The mist touches the hills on the other side of the valley, and I am suddenly too cold on the porch, a shiver running down my spine. Anticipation or dread? When storms roll in, I feel their coming like clammy hands touching my soul. I shrink back, for who likes to weather storms? Internal or external. I think of the quote I wanted to like on Pinterest, "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my own ship." (Aeschylus)

This sailing metaphor stuck with me. For what sailor likes to be caught in the warm and sunny doldrums of a windless, perfect glassy sea? A little storm brings fast winds into the sails and a little excitement to the decks.

The thing about adventure is that it gets old after a while. Days on end of that anticipation/dread sensation leave one longing for a day of doldrums. When the storms are thoughts, though, there is no more escaping them than you could a hurricane at sea. They come out of nowhere and there is no outrunning them. You simply must learn to weather them. This, too, shall pass.

The clouds lift, and the white trunks of the birches glisten in the sun, dripping wet with heavy leaves as their crown. The heavy leaves turn their dark green backs toward the wind and quake, flashing their chartruese tops every now and then in a wave of brilliance. That one white trunk marks my son's grave. I remember that storm, weathered now and just a memory. With the memory comes hope. Every storm I've weathered is a trophy in my case, reminding me that, with Him, all things are possible.

Our whole group, writing on "the View"

Here comes the sun

How easily we forget the past. Five months into this season of depression, I'm finally experiencing some freedom from the oppression - by practicing skills I've known for 2 years now. I brush the dust off slowly as my therapist reminds me how to bring the sunshine back. Opposite action - throwing myself into the life God has set before me, children, messes and all. Accumulating positives - a scribbled list of gratitude in my Joy Journal. Mindfulness - ignoring my constant, self-refreshing mental to-do list and entering into the present moment completely.

Returning to these practices slants the sunlight back into our home. There are long periods of freedom from sadness and guilt throughout the day. The urge to simply leave, either temporarily or permanently, eases as life becomes less difficult. My eyes are no longer blind to the beauty that surrounds me - the dancing girl on the dandelion lawn infusing my day with yellow; the orioles glistening in the morning sun as they sing to heaven; the twin mama cats co-parenting the little brood of kittens that arrived on Monday. It soaks in, finally. All this joy!

A line from a favorite song floats in - "we went dancing in the minefields, sailing through the storms" - yes, that voyage sounds like our lives. For a season, perhaps we'll walk easy on a safe road. Perhaps the minefield is in the rearview mirror for now.

The children always feel it, the lifting of oppression. They pronounce to the sky above that I am healed! Getting better every day! I wonder if they remember that depression has repeated it's turbulant course through our lives multiple times now. Another thing I've felt guilt over: they are all too familiar with suffering, pain, anguish and torment. Is this because of my weakness and my failures? I have to lean hard into the truth that God sent these children, these specific four, to me to mother, weaknesses and failures and all. It's all been seen by Him and allowed by Him and only He knows what He is shaping these children for. As much as I would love to believe that their lives will be easy, is there such a thing? Is life ever truly easy? I know so many of the house of faith for whom life has been an aching bittersweet experience. I know no one who does not miss someone, long for somewhere or something. How can I expect that my children will be free from desires, from failures, from heartbreak?

They are marked for glory, four baby believers already on the hard path of faith. I pray their journeys are marked with the beauty and sunshine I've been blessed with. Rosy wrote to me this morning, "I had a lot of fun through my life and most of it was with you." I feel just the same - my family is the most delightful blessing I've ever been given.

May you dance freely with no fear of danger today...for He can take away the fear even when dangers still lie ahead.

...when I forget my name, remind me.

We bear the light of the Son of man,

so there's nothing left to fear.

So I'll walk with you through the shadowlands

until the shadows disappear,

Because He promised not to leave us,

and His promises are true.

So in the face of all this chaos,

baby, I can dance with you.

Let's go dancing in the minefields,

let's go sailin' in the storms.

this is harder than we dreamed

but I believe that's what the promise is for.

~Dancing in the Minefields, Andrew Peterson~

Linked to Heather:: Just Write

The grass is always greener

Pearl's new kittens. They remind me how much I don't miss nursing my babies!

Have you ever looked on in someone else's life, sighed, and thought to yourself, "It seems so much easier than mine!" Have you then given yourself the grace to truly acknowledge that their life really might be simpler than yours...along with a quick soul-check to make sure you're not envious?

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a difficult experience to live through. For many, it involves being surrounded - at random times of day - with auditory, visual, tactile, and sensory hallucinations. In addition, there is an extraordinary increase in cortisol levels - which respond to our body's perception of stress - each and every time a "flashback" is experienced. Because of this, PTSD is linked to symptoms like exhaustion, fatigue, decreased immune function, high heart rate and blood pressure, poor liver function, poor digestion, bowel problems, weight gain or loss, anxiety, depression, and ineffective coping. This adds up to a very difficult life. When PTSD symptoms flare up - which they do for a lifetime in many survivors - it takes extra effort to complete every task of daily life.

There is a verse in the Bible I've always loved, even though it's meaning seems too vast to comprehend: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." (John 8:32) I shall know the truth, and the truth shall set me free. By acknowedging and submitting to truth in our lives, we will walk free, genuine lives that speak comfort to others who must follow on our hard paths. So, today, I am acknowledging this truth: life with mental illness is more difficult than life without it. Accepting this fact doesn't make me a whiner, a quitter, a slacker, or a spoiled brat. It doesn't make me a negative person. Instead, it allows me to go free from some of the difficult yokes of mental illness.

I have depression. I am not just sad and I can't "just get over it" with enough willpower, prayer or positive thinking.
I have flashbacks. I am not any more crazy then you, I am just reliving a particularly traumatic memory.
I have anxiety. I am not always this fidgety: actually, I function quite well most of the time!
I have a huge amount of stress piled on me. I am not a wimp, a weakling or a worrier even though it might seem like I am to you at this moment!
My children might look different than yours. One man's success is another man's failure.
Yes, my husband does the dishes. But get this, ladies! He loves to do it for me. I'm not forcing him.
Yes, I'm still homeschooling. Yes, even with a job. No, my children are not weird, unsocialized or behind academically. Yes, it is difficult for me. Yes, we might send them to school next year. No, we haven't decided yet.

I wonder sometimes if we've taken the old Christian adage that dictates we not compare ourselves to others a little too far. If we refuse to see differences in the name of equality, does that make us less judgmental? Or just blind?

Weigh in! I'd love to hear your thoughts about difficulties in life and how we perceive them. Have you had to adjust your beliefs lately? Do you struggle to admit difficulty in your life for fear of being called a "wimp"?

Seasons of the soul

We often call it the "winter of our discontent", depression. As I look out at the alien May landscape, I think about the philosophy of this statement. Winter is a time when food is buried, the landscape is foreign, and it is cold and inhabitable outdoors. Do we truly walk through the same when our souls are troubled?

The truth is, God has never left me alone in the snow. He offers me a house to live in, even when I am at my darkest moment. He turns the furnace on and warms the floors. There are slippers by the door when I arrive from the cold. A hot pot of soup simmers on the stove. The fireplace is roaring.

The only question is, will I walk into the brightly lit house on the hill, or choose to wander alone in the drifts? Sometimes it as though I cannot see the lights of home for the weeping. He has been faithful, on those days, to bind my wandering soul to His, come out in the snow Himself and lead me by the hand. I remember vividly a sermon at a funeral when I was a child, taken from Psalm 116:

For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. (v. 8)

As faithful as He is to send the snow falling in winter to water the frozen earth when it thaws in spring, so He has provided shelter from seasons of the soul for all those who trust in Him. He leads us, delivers us, saves us, loves us. Even at our ugliest and most unlovable. When the world turns it's face and hides from our distress, unable to bear our pain any longer, He is there, quietly, to reassure and protect, weep with us and rescue us.

How thankful am I for His faithfulness! How blessed am I by His love.

"Brave"

Conviction

The end of the semester rush is here, and I feel like I am constantly running a few steps behind the pace! I have over 300 pages of carefully typed papers to grade in the next week, along with some 20 research articles to peruse as I grade my sophomore students' research analysis projects. It is enjoyable work but exhausting and time consuming. Today marked my final clinical day for my first year of teaching full time! I have to say I am happy to see the 3 a.m. wake-up time going by the wayside until October.

With the busy season comes a stillness to my writer's heart and mind as all energy focuses on the tasks of teaching and evaluating my beloved students. It is a breath of relief from the agony of self-reflection and healing, as the troubles of the day disappear into the abyss of yesterday with the coming of each short night of sleep. I have felt deep conviction since writing my last post. My dear mother shared a verse with me, in a different context, and the Lord has been quietly speaking deeply into my soul with the simple phrase of that one sentence from the King James. I share it here so that you know how He speaks to me, even through pain, busy seasons, and the few moments of quietness in the morning before the sun dawns again.

...the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. (James 1:20 KJV)

A new painting of mine from this Sunday's "day of painting" that soothed my soul