Category: Mental health

{We Are All Dying}

The crawl of fear,
of losing, is close.  It licks me,
as if I am a salty wound.  Everyone dies.

Of course.

But lately, I am aware
of Life all around me

healthy or otherwise.

Tiny birds are singing a sonnet, high up in the tree.
Cancer cells are growing inside a dear old friend.
Dementia and life-stealing pain overtake a sweet elderly neighbor.
Depression and anxiety crush the once glowing spirit of my child

Meanwhile I cling
to sanity, to sobriety
and to Faith, there is Peace.

We are all dying,

and yet without the thought of imminent loss,
of the Ultimate loss, death

we haven’t appreciated our life as a gift.

Everyone dies.
Everyone lives.

Won’t you choose to live?

Choose joy in the midst of sorrow and grief?
Choose peace when hope seems dim?
Yes, fear circles around me like a flame, curling and

enveloping me in those early morning hours when

fear wakes me with a vice grip on my heart, blood pulsing.
Aware, that I am alive.

Everyone lives.
Everyone dies.

They are bitter, these days and nights.  Acrid, this
awareness

of life. Pungent,

and in this Pain,
there is a Holy Awareness.

Life’s aroma is sweet.

{anxiety is a rabid dog}

anxiety is a dog.

not like mine, fluffy and sweet.

anxiety is a killer

dog, rabid.

I am eaten up,

chewed on.  I am

consumed.

++++++

“Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.” – Samuel Johnson, From The Rambler

Who’s listening? On writing and living a Story

The fog crept in steadily.

The morning was dreary, unusually dark; so much so that my son asked if the sun was coming today.

As I began my morning run I felt the drizzle soaking through the cloth on my arms, but it is unseasonably warm so my legs, bare to the elements, felt refreshed by the thick moist air.

I ran.  And I keep running not because I intend to win a race.  I ran, and I keep running not because there is anyone encouraging me along – though people are cheering, in my head and in my life.

I ran, and I keep running because I love myself.

Even as I have learned that I love myself and that I am quite beloved by God, I have my days.  Bad days when this doesn’t feel true.

The other day a reader said my writing “lacked heart.”  At first, it shook me.  The voice in my head murmuring and cloying, “You thought you had come so far.”

Sunday I heard the words again, the source Brennan Manning and a piece of a puzzle fell into place.  The first time I heard the words “I am the one Jesus loves” I physically recoiled away from the idea.  My heart, dry and rigid like clay left too long in the sun, broken into pieces already.  Those words didn’t offer solace, then.

Today I know they are true and I argue back.

I am loved!  I have a heart, soft and malleable.  I am full of passion and I can put my heart into words on the page and move people. 

But that cannot be why I write – for others to be moved, for others to approve, or for others to be impressed by my supposed ability.  And I cannot write what I am not living every day the passion and pain of motherhood, of being a Child of God, of being healed even as I am still broken, of God nursing me back to health over the last decade of depravity and addiction and a lifetime of sorrow.  I write my story not out of some psychological need, either.

I write what I am living even as I know I cannot write everything.  But write I do because I believe it will reach others in their inner dark spaces of which I know nothing specific, but I can imagine because the life I have lived; because I have walked the road of depression and a shaky unclear disbelieving heart.  I have lived the days, even years of not wanting to be alive.  I have been there and I am not there now and so I write.

I spoke it aloud to my husband, asking if he had read the piece.  What did he think?  Crushed, momentarily by my apparent “lack of heart” Wavering, slowly then I remembered the rest.  The fellow Redbud who said it was “brilliant” and all the rest who read and were moved and who wept. And I knew.  And I learned.

I cannot write for the reader.

I cannot write for my own personal health.

I cannot write for glory.

I must write because of the story inside, the story I have lived and still live daily.  The story is the gift and the sacrifice.  And if God is glorified in my weakness, this is why I write.

{When Up is Down}

Up is down

And down is up.  God is real

To me.  And doesn’t exist

To others.  I pray
And God does not answer. Others pray

And seem to know.

Up is down

And down is up.

I have too much.
Others don’t have enough.  I am stuffed
Others hungry.

My heart aches and others seem to dance,
always dance.

They say I am a good mother
I believe otherwise.

They say he was a good man,

I say bad, very bad.
We have everything but we feel empty.

Good and bad
Up and down.

What is? 
What is not?

{a house comes tumbling down}

Strange how life works, I didn’t sleep – and because of it I am in a bleak, dark place.  I’ve had two nights in the last few weeks where I quite literally lay awake all night long – not awake enough to do anything productive, but not resting deeply either. The result is I’m sick at heart and physically shaky; short-tempered, and irritated by everyone.

Old and ugly insecurities are having their way, messing with me.  This makes me sad, so very sad.

I ran this morning out of pure conviction, blaming and shaming myself the entire way.  You should be running longer, you should be faster by now, how silly to be your little 2.5 miles, why do you bother? What’s 27 pounds, when people will always be younger and fitter than you!? To them, you are fat.

I can tally my mistakes so quickly when I am tired.  I am full of self-doubt, as a writer certainly and especially.  I wish for a career again.  Or even simply an office to go to or perhaps a paycheck to make me feel I’m making a contribution to something tangible on the planet earth   I wonder why I cannot ever feel resolute and worthwhile in my role as a mother, caretaker, home maker?

My chest is heavy with fear and doubt about my path.

My chest is also heavy too for my children.  I want so much for them, but I am learning that they must be “allowed” to question, make their choices, voice their doubts, express their ideas, have problems that I do not solve for them.  I cannot always defend them to other or be defensive about their choices.  I have to let my children become.  I have to let them fail, perhaps.  Bailing children out isn’t the answer. Pushing is okay, at times.  Encourage and buoy up, even reward and bribe, a carrot, for a future which is full of possibilities they cannot yet imagine.

I am learning about boundaries, mostly that I am terrible with them. I do for others until I resent the doing ending up with no time to write or think or pray or sit with the Holy One.

I resent those that have been to seminary and are clear in their understanding of theology and can write out of those assurances.   I resent those who knew early on who and what they were.  I resent that I lived in a gray, lost fog for much of my life, and then that I became a drunk, and then … just managed to survive.  Yes, I am a survivor but what else am I good for?

Yes, most days I just persist on, hoping that the future is better than the past. Today I’m having a hard time believing in anything.

I feel empty and invisible in a world where stature, and statuses, and lists and mentions matter. And then I feel utterly ridiculous for looking, for caring about those things at all, for being the sort of person that needs assurance of others, the esteem of men in authority, the likes and tweets of writers whom I admire.  Perhaps if I get another degree I will finally feel okay.

I sit in church and I am filled with doubt; traversing into the land of agnosticism, as my husband likes to say – he takes day trips, I am living there today.  I feel angry, skeptical, pessimistic, fearful and tired.

No, I cannot prove there is a God to satisfy my children.

No, I do not know why some people are so happy, successful and life seems to be so easy, for some.

No, we do not live in the perfect house like so and so, nor am I the perfect homemaker, like so and so’s mom. Nor am I handy, to create the perfect anything.

I need sleep and some days that’s all that it takes to push me over the edge into an ugly place of fear and skepticism.

I read this morning in the book of Psalms, David asked for a sign of God’s favor to help against his enemies. 

Who are my enemies?  Today they are self-doubt and lack of surety about the purpose of my life. My faith is weak but does this mean God has failed me?    My children doubt, push on my beliefs, even fail to thrive, does this mean we are failing them? I look at newborn babies and I am filled with dread.  For we all grow up and live lives full of disappointment.

 It is amazing how sleep holds one together or lack of it brings a house tumbling down.

{on feeling the crazies and hoping, still}

some days just are.

crazy that is,

when you wonder how to catch your breath.  and realize
in a shocking moment that you may not be taking in h20.  and yet miraculously you’re still

alive.

panic, dread and fear threaten to consume. some internal, perfectionist voice screaming: this can’t be right?
how can parenting

be so hard?
early, before the dawn you rose up out of bed.  in the dark, sipping

hot coffee, you read about being called. and you prayed to be wise. knowing.

a steward of the precious lives, entrusted.

my head says, poor me.  life is so difficult.  wisdom scarce. challenges too many,

i want to flee.
bail. feeling hopeless, helpless but God promises
to be a SHIELD.

you read: “He lifts my head.”

i am shocked, perplexed by these words, from Henri JM Nouwen who said he was “impressed by the enormous abyss between my insights and my life.”

some days

are about longing for wisdom, dreaming and hopeful, still

in the midst of the crazy years.

Longing for Miracles

Image

I had a moment today.

I whispered it out loud.

“I wish I could turn off my brain.”

It races you see.  It pushes and collides, a pinball machine. It drives me. It’s in frequent turmoil, or is that my heart vibrating?  I think so much, I think so hard

about things that my head hurts, building into aggravation and strain.

Becoming anxiety

inside me.  And I hate anxiety!  Trapped inside a sticky web of lies, that swirl all around.

To me it means I’m not trusting.  That this faith thing that I purport to live by, just maybe it isn’t real.

I had a moment today,

when I longed for a miracle—A book of

Acts, Upper Room, Pentecostal filled with the spirit, holy ghost kind of Miracle.

Yes please, just one.

Then I got to thinking.

Faith is

believing without seeing.

I had a moment today.

{An Ordinary Tuesday Afternoon: Depression, Social Media and Rooibos Tea}

Being faithful in the dailies is a test for me, summers especially.

Doing the dishes, again; picking up that little plastic army man, marbles, blanket, pillow, books, for the umpteenth time; kids needing to be fed three times a day!?!  Giving rides, so daily.

The highlight of my day is finding an open window upstairs, with the air still on.  The waste, a definite low! But it’s no wonder the upstairs is humid like an amazon jungle.  Mystery solved. How interesting.

Argh, it’s just all so boring!  And tedious.

I used to be able to avoid this feeling. I’d do almost anything to not feel bored!  Working when I still had a “job;” shopping was a favorite, compulsively, without needing anything, “just browsing” I’d tell myself.  These days it’s cooking or exercising.  My garden has grown wild from lack of attention but it used to distract me.  Once, I avoided this feeling with drinking.  All with the single purpose of not feeling this crazy feeling and not being left here with—this—moment—.  

Plain old life. 

For many years I thought I just wasn’t faithful—enough.  Surely If I was more devout, prayed better or at least more frequently, even fervently; or if I served with a restored attitude—this feeling might go away.  But that’s just another excuse.  Prayer, study, reading, serving are all ways to avoid this—feeling—.

I was irritated, as I was reading, quietly sipping my coffee and most importantly alone, when he kept chirping at me.  I just wanted to left alone in the quiet reading more of  the Prophets.

I was irritated that my stepdaughter didn’t come home last night, again and didn’t let me know.

I was irritated that my daughter slept on the couch for the third night in a row; left food out overnight; didn’t pick up after herself.  So when she asks me to make her breakfast toast I went off, like a tea kettle boiling then erupting. I will owe her an apology.

I was irritated that the boys make such a colossal mess in their room.

And irritated that the house decays so quickly.  That there are dishes in the sink, again.  That the dishwasher is broken, that the disposal is broken.  That the floor is degrading.

The house is falling in around me and I’m—furious!

I try to distract myself wondering what classic books I can start reading.  Wishing I could go on a vacation and resenting all the people that are on vacations or have taken them this summer.  Instagram and Facebook are constant reminders of others travelling to exotic locations.

I used to travel when I was young, before I met Tom; before we had kids and I quit my job; before we cut up our credit cards. This too is a part of the harsh reality of minding our Ps and Qs financially.  We don’t spend money we don’t have. Sometimes I hate being a grown up.

And so I yell at my daughter for asking me to make her toast, for asking for lunch money, for not picking up the comforter from her nights on the couch.

I slink around the house irritable, and then, anxiety come seeping in.  And I know from experience that if I don’t figure out what’s truly bothering me this will worsen.  This could get really bad, before it improves.

I pop on to Facebook, even though for the most part lately it makes me feel grumpy and alone.  Someone I don’t even know (in real life) posts an article.  I know he struggles with depression though I cannot remember how I know that about him, as he is a stranger to me.  Weird that I know this piece of information about this stranger but because of it I’m intrigued by the title: Depression, Gift, and Legacy.  Reading it, I meet a new poet (to me) the late Jane Kenyon by reading her poem “Having it Out With Melancholy.”  I make a new friend in this poet.  Here is a piece:

when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing 
the bile of desolation into every pore.

And for a second I have the energy to write this.  I know that for this day at least, it will pass even as I long for greater contentment and peace. But for today, for the moment it is enough to find a poet that understands me.  I this moment I do not feel so alone.  The wonders of social media.

Caroline Langston, the article’s author too becomes a friend today because I get her and what she wrote.  

It is like puzzle pieces clicking into place, deep inside of me.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle,” said Philo of Alexandria. Oh how I love that quote.  I remind myself of that all the time. My own battles with depression have allowed me to see others more clearly, with more empathy and understanding.

And Caroline paraphrases Walker Percy saying: “The hardest thing in life is to get through an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. One is far happier to be facing an imminent hurricane.”

As I sit here petulantly bearing my boring day which weighs on me; heavy like the summer air outside, thick and impenetrable, ghastly.  But rather than avoid, I will sit here a moment  with my sweet and smoky Rooibos tea.  I will feel my irritation, my wishing, my longings, my fear, my resentments.

I will sit and be in this day.

{Enough, Continued …}

Part One of processing the book Enough is here.

I read the book “Enough” by Will Davis Jr and wrote my review.  I kinda thought that would be the end of it.  Lesson learned – my More Than Enough, my Plenty, my Abundance can be or IS someone else’s Enough. Such a neat  idea in theory, but what that means in a daily way didn’t fully sink in – not at all.

That book is messing with me!

I read in “Enough” that we are to be giving our ten percent to the church, but in reality for us we’re giving about five percent to our church and about one percent to other organizations.

I cannot stop thinking about that principle that is all over scripture.  What will it mean this month to give ten percent off the top, at the beginning before we pay our bills, and sort out how to live afterwards? These are things that we don’t really want to think about or do.

I woke up this morning thinking about this again, that we’re instructed in scripture to give ten percent and we’re to trust God to provide for our daily manna.

That means honestly taking a look at how we spend our money, where does it all go in a month? Many times for us it is frittered away on more video games, and frozen yoghurt, and iced coffees for the kids; on the conveniences of modern life, like dry cleaning and lawn care and mobile phones and eating out a few times.  For me, on buying books and not requesting them from the library.

What does it mean to take a cold hard look at our monthly spending and at the beginning give to God off of the top and then sort out the rest?

The first thing I remember from the book is that Davis suggested we look about our home for all the things we haven’t used or worn in the last year.  That job, to clear our home of these things so that they might possible become someone else’s Enough, is the task for this week. (Even though, I REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO IT! I’m so lazy.)  We’re going to photograph all the things we don’t need and use, things that are just taking up space in our basement and garage, and give them away.  The task just as it stands is a daunting one and today with the sun shining and a long  empty day looming ahead, what I really want to do is hang out by the lake or something, anything but go through our stuff.  But I think this act of obedience is the thing that needs to be accomplished, today.

Davis spoke of slowing down, listening and being open to God speaking. 

Yesterday, I found out someone I know is sending their kid to a Shakespeare away camp.  (It feels like everyone sends their kids to summer camp away, except us.) And another person is sending their kids to Grandma and Grandpa for the duration of the summer.  When I heard that I felt envy and anger that we haven’t take our kids on a vacation in several years; although it is out of an act of obedience, where we decided we would never again live on credit.  That was a baby step of financially growing up, that we took a few years ago.  This means we don’t travel if we don’t have the cash the bank.  Yes, I wish to be able to take the kids to visit Grandma and Grandpa, that but for now this is not possible.  We have a child in college and we have many other obligations.

As I woke this morning I was angry and to be honest kind of thought I was mad at God.  Then I realized that we’re just being smart.  We save for retirement, we live within our means, we give (like I said not ten percent yet) and we try to respond to needs as they come before us.  Right now there is no margin for vacations.

It’s not God that is to blame for an unsustainable American Dream.

And if I feel angry that we don’t have Enough to go on a vacation with our kids this summer, I should focus that emotion toward clearing out of the house our More Than Enough so that others can be blessed.

MELODY

A part of the Patheos Book Club on the book “ENOUGH: Finding More By Living with Less” by Will Davis Jr.

{A Letter to my Soul}

A letter to my soul
if I were giving her permission.

Dear self, won’t you
be happy?

Stop with the endless mental chatter
howling and rabid:
“You are not good enough.”
Just stop,

life is supposed to be fun and you
my darling young thing should enjoy your life
even just a bit.

Enjoy your family,
your talent,
your abundance,
your quirky take on the world,
your eloquent speech,
your strange and peculiar heart that is broken-down,
all too often crushed by everyone’s pain.

Enjoy just a little bit,
silly soul, be happy.

If someone catches you dancing, well wouldn’t that be
something to behold.

{What it means to FEAR HIM}

Fear has always chased me and won.   It clamors at me through perfectionism and anxiety to the point that my reflex response to life is to fear it.   I’m certain it is the crux of my depression. Even so, it was some kind of miraculous act of God that brought me Tom to share my life.  For in my human response I would never, not in a million years, have been bold enough to commit to my frail heart to love or marriage. God intended this and somehow intervened in my heart. If it were up to me I would still, today be very alone.

Each intake of breath and out is accompanied by anxious thoughts.  I have to daily surrender it to God. Even today, it chases me as I run for exercise trying to get this sorry 45 year old body in shape.  Each step chased my anxiety. 

I am one who craves routine — what can be expected, anticipated and known. I find spontaneity amusing, but not quite enjoyable.  My father went on uncontrollable, inexplicable rages.  It had no logical connection to our day-to-day life as far as I could ascertain.  He was often exploding or riding one until she gave up on whatever it was that she wanted.

The result is that she lets go of her own passions, and purpose and understanding of the world and her life.—her own call and purpose, her own dreams,—

That was my mother I watched as her imaginings were crushed. Her life turned into a frightening nightmare. And in small ways that story became my own legacy.

I felt crushed like a bug, only to come back to life over and over again in the same home, with the same father.  Stuck in a hell of his making, afraid of living, afraid of people, afraid of risk, afraid of my own thoughts and ideas.  Afraid to make a life of my own.

“The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.” — Psalm 34:7

The command to FEAR HIM strikes something deep in me, the humming chord that is more than a little bit beautiful, and yet  there is a lot that I don’t understand about it. This kind of fear is confusing to me.  Knowing that  God deserves my fear, but it is not because he intends

to crush me

or to humiliate me

or destroy my soul. 

He intends me to fear him in order to be set free! {This requires trust.}

I once told an erratic and fickle boyfriend “Treat me well, or treat me poorly I don’t care. Just be steady! My father is never consistent or predictable.”  I just couldn’t stand the bitter torture of his inconsistency.

And so, I am setting out on a journey to understand my own fears and more importantly to discover THIS GOD WHO PROMISES so much to those who “fear him.”

If there is anything that you know, that you have learned ,of this HOLY FEAR, I would love to hear from you—books, Bible study resources, scriptures, poetry, preacher’s sermons or personal experience.

What does it mean to FEAR God?

MELODY

I am honored to have some of my poems included with a collection of essays in the book Not Afraid which is scheduled to come out in August, 2012.

{Do you Have a Plan for Your Life? I thought I did.}

Yesterday, I was pulling away and in pain.

Of my own creating I always wonder? It’s certainly difficult to ascertain culpability when depression is hereditary and when cycles of pain, withdrawing, insecurity, and self-loathing go back so far in a family’s story.  Still, why do I look for whom to blame when ultimately I blame myself?

Keen to enter into community life at least in theory, and even when depressed, I went to church yesterday. Anyway.  I listened, hard.  I sang  along and wept. The song, it was …

“I lift my eyes up. My help comes from the Lord.  He will always …

I find it impossible. Those words:  God always what? … Are there promises from God that are universal to all, for always?  If so, what are they?

Yesterday, I kept thinking you are not promised anything. 

… To be happy.

… To find joy.

… To experience contentment.

… To have work, (even more so) meaningful world-changing work.

How arrogant all these years I was thinking there was a plan for my life – yes, a really significant “thing” I was to do.  Truthfully, isn’t life more random than that?  And isn’t meaning drawn from the day-to-day questions?

How do you love?  Who do you love?  Do you honestly value the people in front of you today?

Yesterday’s lesson for me was to learn how important it is to tell them so. Be intentional and careful with the precious relationships that I do have.

I easily focus on my mistakes and foibles, my lack, which all too quickly moves to my future, even my lasting significance.  I am living into middle age physically downtrodden and constipated, believing the lie, even yesterday, that I’m unlikable. And that this is what matters?

Forgetting the truth, which is that it is better to give than to receive.

That is a plan.

That is a life.

In that one will find happiness, joy, contentment and even, quite possibly meaningful world-changing work.  But if not, truthfully being a “big shot” no matter how much something in me craves for it, isn’t “It” at all.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  Hebrews 4:12

This is it, this is truth.

To know God and to be known by him and in turn to love others out of that knowledge.  To know God’s WORD, to keep seeking, searching, longing, wanting the Holy One more than anything.

May it be so.