Mother of four boys, aged 5 to 16. I suffer from depression and anxiety, and I have ADHD. Writing about my thoughts and experiences helps me to process through them and connect with others who resonate with the things I have to say. I always find my thoughts returning to my Savior and Redeemer of my Soul. He has led me through my recovery journey and I depend on him every day to help me through. As I feel his love and speak of his healing, my own burdens are lifted. Even so, the depression continues, and probably always will, which is why I will always be his broken-hearted hand-maiden.
Last year I wrote a post about my grape vine. I was worried about pruning it back severely. The year before I hadn’t pruned it hardly at all. We had lots of branches and leaves and no edible fruit. I wrote about mustering the courage to do something different and allow myself to fail and learn. We ended up with a plentiful harvest of grapes last summer, but the fruit was small and not very sweet with big seeds in each grape. We ended up making the grapes into juice which with a little added sugar was delicious and I’m sure it was packed with nutrients as well.
This was one of the bunches of grapes we got from our vine this year.
That’s a lot of grapes!!
We made the grapes into grape juice concentrate which we froze in jelly jars.
This year I was late getting the grapevine pruned. With the chaos of the coronavirus, my usual spring gardening routine has been upended. Having an anxiety disorder when the world is in such chaos and turmoil is hard. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to have OCD. My hands have broken out in a rash from frequent hand washing. I’ve had to curtail my habit of constantly checking the news because the anxiety only becomes worse. I can’t go to the grocery stores anymore because the sight of empty shelves sends me into panic mode.
Last night when Ben came home from work, I was barely functioning. My hands and feet were white and cold from a Ranauds attack. Layne made dinner and Ben watched the kids while I took a bath. As I sat in the warm water with only my thoughts for company, I felt so much darkness. I thought of how foolish we all are. We delude ourselves into feelings of safety. We make plans and investments and conduct endless research. We think we are wise and independent. We think we don’t need God. All we need is the latest tech, no interest financing and zero down.
Shame colored my cheeks as I thought miserably how often I have soothed myself into a false sense of security and trust in governments, corporations, 401ks, and my own preparations for family emergencies. Disaster was bound to come. My efforts to stave off the feelings of despair seemed so pointless.
But the warm water, some medicine, and some needed support from Ben and a family friend helped me to scrape together enough hope to face another day. We had a good morning with prayer, scriptures, breakfast together, and some outside chores. I was going to rake the leaves in the front yard. The live oak in the front loses its leaves in the spring just as the grass is coming to life after its winter sleep. It’s urgent that we get the leaves off the grass, but I saw the grapevine leaf buds were beginning to swell. I put the boys to work raking the leaves while I tackled the grapevine.
As I cut into the grapevine, I felt a surge of confidence after last year’s success. I knew that the pruning was essential, that the harvest would depend on my work today. Still, it was sad to cut off all the tender new leaves that were swelling in their nodes, and drops of water fell from each cut branch. The plant seemed to me to be crying. “Why would you do this to me?” I hope it will be okay with such a late pruning. If not, my treatment may result in the death of the plant.
Severe pruning in the early spring ensures a good harvest of grapes in the summer. We’ll see how mine does this year. A late pruning left my grapevine dripping sadly from each pruned branch. I hope I was not too late.
My family has been reading the fifth chapter of Jacob in the Book of Mormon. It is a very long and complex allegory of a vineyard. The Lord of the vineyard and his servants work constantly on the trees of the vineyard to produce good fruit to lay up for the season. It is discouraging when at times they look out at the trees and see nothing but bad fruit. Then they go out and prune and dung the trees in hopes that they will be able to make a difference.
Olive trees are very interesting. The fifth chapter of Jacob is an allegory comparing world spiritual history with an olive vineyard. Each time I read it I feel my mine opening to new parallels between gardening and people. Plants teach me about God. Photo by Stacey Franco on Unsplash
There are so many layers to this metaphor. I see it in my children, my ward, my nation, and the world. Sometimes progress means cutting back. Sometimes the way forward isn’t a straight line. Sometimes we have to hurt. Sometimes we have to cry. Most of all, we need to see our own foolishness. Our own impotence. Our own dependence on God. There is no elite class wise and powerful enough to save us. We are infantile in our understanding. We need the one who is Mighty to Save. We need Him in our hearts, our counsels, our homes, and our schools. We need Him in our hospitals, our stores, and our governments. He is the only path to salvation.
I realize that this view is controversial. I don’t wish to force the minds of anyone who doesn’t see the world as I do. Still, I will not be silent when the need is so great and the cure and relief so certain. It is only through the grace of the Son of God that the world will be saved. There is no other way. It is less a conversion to a certain religion and more an excavation process. We find the Son of God within ourselves. Each of us is divine. Each of us has the child or son of God within that must be nurtured and developed and revealed out of a calloused and hard shell of mortal decay.
It is comforting to seek solace in science, facts, and models created by the learned. It is comforting to trust in history and tradition. These things are good and helpful, but they are not enough. We need God. And not a God of a few select people who look or behave a certain way. We need a God who is wise enough and powerful enough to dissolve the divisions that cut us off from one another. A God who can unite mankind into a powerful force for righteousness. We need to be a better people than we are. We need to be more compassionate, more full of faith, and more determined to find the Savior within ourselves.
I hope and pray that we will repent before it’s too late to do so. With God there is nothing that can stop us. Without Him, we are doomed to fail whether to earthquakes, tempests, pestilences, or war amongst ourselves. Coronavirus is only one of the scourges of mortality and though this is bad, I suspect it will not be the end of the calamities we will face.
I was supposed to be completing my work. Pages of numbers scrawled in careless handwriting stared at me like a ravenous beast. Every day I would labor over the numbers, but it was never enough. I was behind again. I had my notebook and my textbook in my lap, my back slouched against the wall of the school hallway. It was awkward, but less because of practice. Day in and day out, recess after recess I would work on my missing assignments. Day in and day out, I would be sent out to the hallway while the class graded papers that I had yet to complete. Classes of students would file past, single file. If I thought about it, my cheeks would burn with shame, but I didn’t think about it. That just made it harder to handle. If everyone in Sugar City didn’t know I was a loser, they didn’t have their eyes open. I was in the hall more than anyone else in the fifth grade. I was in study hall so much that even when I went out to recess, the other kids already had their groups of friends. I was a loser and everyone knew it. Even when I walked across the stage to get my diploma wearing my high honors tassel on my square hat. Even when I graduated from college. I’ve worked my whole life to try and overcome that gnawing feeling of inadequacy that haunts me from those early days sitting in the halls, wishing I could disappear.
I read the book, Lord of the Flies, with my teenage son this week. He was assigned to read the book for school. It’s an incredibly disturbing book and I’m glad that I was able to help my son to process the horror of it. I wish someone had helped me to deal with the book when I had to read it as a teen. The level of savagery that the author portrayed has burned itself into my brain. It teaches important things about cruelty and the capacity of good people to do terrible things; the beast that lives within each of us is real and we need to understand it, even if it’s uncomfortable. As a mother of boys, the book is particularly disturbing because it is perceptive. It is unsurprising that the author was a teacher of boys. He knows them well, like I do. There have been many times when I have seen the savage instincts of my sons flare up and I have thought, “They wouldn’t survive a week on their own. They would murder each other within days.” They aren’t bad boys, but they are never too far from doing some very bad things. It takes constant nurturing and guidance to keep the flame of empathy and compassion alive. Like the boys in the book keep the fire alive, I have to constantly tend it. Hopefully they will learn to light their own inner fires of compassion and empathy. In a world where the lights of compassion are being snuffed out, I hope I am successful. For some boys, compassion comes easily. For them, a culture of cruelty too often encouraged and tolerated by adults can be the most damaging. That boy was Simon in the book.
I relate to Ralph, and his struggle to bare the burden of responsible leadership. I relate to Piggy and his asthma that keeps him from contributing in traditional ways. But most of all, I relate to Simon. Simon, the awkward introvert who keeps trying to say the thing that everyone most needs to hear, but he can’t quite get the words out. Simon, who craves the approval and love of Ralph so he tries to hide what everyone can see; that he is different and wrong and broken. Simon, the bravest and best of the boys on the island who was also the most vulnerable and lonely. Simon, the betrayed and abandoned, who loved the survivors enough to face the beast alone. He was the only one who knew the real danger that the camp faced and he died trying to tell them. The beast is not what you think it is. The monster you fear is within you. Within us.
In a culture of cruelty, I don’t want to be popular and cool. I don’t want to fit in. I would rather be Simon. I know what suffering feels like and I want a world where we have less of it. None of it. The beast is not in the other party. It isn’t in another country. It isn’t in another faith community. It isn’t in another generation. The beast is in you. It is in me. We can choose to climb the mountain. We can face the fear and discomfort of self-discovery. We can face our friends and share what we have learned whether they are in a place to hear it or not. I believe in the power of planting seeds. I like to think that before Simon was murdered by the boys he loved that he was gathering seeds on the island and planting them. He was the kind of person who plants seeds.
It’s interesting to think of how the Lord of the Flies might have been different if Ralph had valued Simon. What if he had listened to him? What if he had relied on him instead of on Jack? Perhaps a group of young boys would inevitably create chaos and cruelty. Perhaps a group of fallen adult people are doomed to do only marginally better on this island cut off from our God. Still, I think it is possible for the Simons in our society to speak out more often, even when we do it imperfectly. I think the Ralphs in our society can listen to us more. If we do, we could change the story of the world.
It was strange standing in line for the Democratic Primary. I felt like a stranger looking into brown and black faces, trying to manage the paper ballot, and pretending I knew what I was doing, like I was not seeing the names on the ballot for the first time in my life. I skipped most of the offices, wishing I was more prepared. Wishing I hadn’t spent so much time and effort following the one race I had the least impact in; the Presidential election.
I’ve spent all morning wondering what it would be like to vote as a Democrat. I don’t belong. I know that. But I also know that most people probably feel like they don’t belong. The Democratic Party is for those who don’t belong, isn’t it? It is the party of minorities. The party of second chances. The party of those who feel left out. In that way, I guess I do belong, as much as anyone else does.
What would it be like to try to belong to the Democratic Party? They are so diverse! How do they even have a party at all? One thought kept coming back to my mind. To belong to the Democratic Party, I would have to do a lot of listening. On my blog, I do a lot of talking. Talking is good, especially when you’re in pain. But I don’t think that talking is what our country really needs right now. We need really, really good listeners.
I hope I can do better to develop that neglected virtue of listening. Empathizing, understanding, and withholding judgment are essential for creating unity. Most people and most problems are a lot more complex than I want to think they are. Whether I am a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, isn’t as important as whether I have prepared myself for an election. My heart vibrates with the truth of this statement: A nation is only as strong the hope that lives within the diverse factions in it; and the charity that is shown by each faction for the others. If the hope and charity are there, the engagement is there. An engaged society is a healthy society.
Hope is voting, speaking out, engaging in the process, and allowing others to do the same, even if it doesn’t sound good. If someone is protesting, or posting, or voting, they haven’t completely lost hope. That’s good! I saw hope today in each person who was volunteering at the polls today. Black and brown and white they believed that they were making a difference. They chose to be a part of the process.
My goal between now and November is to be better prepared for the election. My goal is to focus more on the local and state contests than I have on the national ones. I want to contribute what I can to make my society better. All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing. To withdraw. To wait for the Savior to come and fix it. To isolate ourselves from uncomfortable realities about ourselves, our families, and our communities.
I’m not ready to join the Democratic Party today, but I hope my vote and my small effort mattered. I hope that the party of minorities can take me in, if only for a day; to make a spot for a former Republican who was left behind. I promise to listen better. I promise to withhold judgement and make room for understanding. I promise to take some steps to engage with the people around me to make this world a better place.
Panic. I glance at my phone again. Only moments have passed, but worry makes it feel like an eternity. Another case. The death toll goes up. There aren’t enough masks. The spread is inevitable. It is the coronavirus; covid-19.
I tend to catastrophize, so I’ve had to take a lot of deep breaths this week and remind myself that my family has survived zika, swine flu, ebola, and all the rest. Its been a challenge to turn off my phone, focus on doing productive things to prepare my family for the worst, and remember that it probably won’t be as bad as I think it’s going to be.
Part of how I cope with anxiety is reading and learning. I feel like the more I know about a threat the better I will be able to handle it. This coping strategy can be helpful, but at some point you have to admit that there isn’t enough knowledge in the universe to quell the fiery furnace of anxiety. The newest news article or podcast isn’t going to give you the magic cure to your fear. As I’ve studied viruses, I’ve pondered on the modern idea of something “going viral.” Viruses, with their ability to replicate and spread exponentially are the perfect metaphor for the spread of information, media, and ideas online. Viruses are not only bad and dangerous, there are good viruses too. Virologists study ways we can use our knowledge of viruses to actually create and distribute helpful viruses.
The doctrines and principles that the Savior taught were and are viral in the way they spread and continue to take hold in the hearts and minds of those who find Him and are changed by Him. Faith in Him is contagious in the best way. Embracing the compassion and empathy that He embodied makes each disciple a better human being; a more contributing member of the human family.
There is something really special that is happening in my ward family. Maybe even something viral. Today was fast and testimony meeting. People were sharing their struggles and their stories. We had a really good lesson in Sunday school. It was amazing to feel the spirit so strongly with others as we testified of the atoning power of the Savior. The Bishop made a comment about how everyone, no matter who they are, or what they have done can repent and be saved. The energy in that room was so palpable as we expanded on that idea. I talked about how having a mental disorder, ADHD, I spent so much of my childhood listening to adults tell me to find my stuff and complete my work and that the shame of who I was was so overwhelming. I said that I prayed that God would take that away and make me like everyone else that seemed to get it. I thought that was healing. He has taught me over the years that he will never take away who I am and what makes me unique. He only tells me that I’m enough, with him. That together, he can make me an instrument. That I can do what he needs me to do.
That resonated with a brother who confided his story to me after church. First he said, “Thank you for your willingness to share your vulnerabilities. In the church, I wish we would talk less about our successes and more about our failures. That is what we need to hear. We need to hear about our vulnerabilities.” I was so surprised to hear that from a man. Especially a man who looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties. You never know who your story will impact. I wrote the things he told me in my personal journal, but since he shared only with me, I will not share the details with you. I will say, his story was incredible and inspiring. I feel a strong bond of brotherhood with this man that I would never have if I had not shared my story.
The power of story is incalculable. God gave his only Son so that we could come here and make our stories. Triumph, despair, success, failure, friendship, betrayal, emnity, and resolution. Our stories are sacred. Our experiences are bought with an eternal sacrifice. How and whom we share our stories with is our choice, but we have been given a light. Doesn’t it deserve to shine on a candlestick that all might benefit from what it reveals? I think so.
I choose to share my story. I hope you will share your story. You never know who needs to hear it. I feel strongly that the virus is a metaphor for our time. We can make vulnerability go viral. We can share our burdens with others. We can support and strengthen the meek with the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. His light and his eternal power can sustain us through this troubled time. All those who will own him Lord, who will put aside pride and the vanity of the world, can come together in humility and true imitation of the greatest man who ever lived. He can bring us unity and peace. He can heal the trauma of our past and empower us to help others heal as well. There is no other path that will lead to peace and happiness.
Let’s make our testimony of the Savior go viral! How has he blessed your life? Tell three to five people and tell them to tell their story to three to five people. If we do it, we can make a covid-19 spread of hope and salvation. He is the way, the truth, and the life. If any man believe in Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live! He was meek and lowly in heart. He was despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Yet though Him, the world can be redeemed! Share the good news! Let’s make it go viral.
My Grandma Eva was as close to a Saint as a non-Catholic family could have. By saint, I mean the kind of person who is so good even Jesus would be impressed; the kind of person who if she approved of you, would put in a good word for you and it would count with God. According to family narrative, she was the perfect mother and wife. She was constantly cooking delicious food, helping her kids excel in school, and reading poetry. She was also a performer in the Road Shows that used to be a big deal in our church. She probably walked on water too, although no one ever mentioned it. She died tragically when my dad was six years old from a ruptured appendix. His home life was rough. His dad remarried, and his step mother didn’t like him. He grew up in a tiny house full of step-brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, and half-brothers and sisters. It was chaotic and not very nurturing, but he always had the memory of his mother to keep him going. She was his angel mother.
When I was born, on Eva’s birthday, I became “Little E.” Little E. was expected to be perfect, like her namesake. I can honestly say, I did my very best to become Eva. And I failed. When I went to counselling for severe anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation as a young mother, I found myself looking across the room at a counselor who was asking me about my dad and my family and Eva. I had been telling myself for years, “There’s nothing wrong with my family!!” and I believed it. Even as my symptoms got worse. Even as I started to realize that I was never going to be able to live up to the impossible expectations of my parents. I couldn’t even consider the possibility that there could be something wrong with my family.
I knew how this worked. One of my aunts, my dad’s half sister, had trouble with mental health. She went to counseling and they started saying stuff was wrong with her home life. Her parents put a stop to that right away. There was nothing wrong with them. Ever since then therapists were under a cloud of suspicion for our family. Apparently the therapist had told my teenaged aunt to “just do what she wanted to do” to help her to feel better. That was the most ridiculous solution in the world, I was told. Now I was sitting across from a counselor who was going to try to make stuff up about my family; like that we weren’t perfect and that I wasn’t supposed to be perfect. That I wasn’t totally responsible for everything that was wrong with my life. That it wasn’t totally within my power to fix it and make everything perfect, the way I knew I had to.
What should I do? I was trapped. Suicide was a sin. I didn’t want to die. I had two kids by this time. I would go to hell and leave my children to suffer like my dad did. Or I could talk to this counselor and maybe he could help me. It was so hard, but I decided to talk. It felt like I was betraying my family, but what choice did I have?
So I talked and talked and talked about the pressure I was under to be perfect and how I grew up terrified of my dad’s angry outbursts and physical assaults. He called them spankings, but that is minimizing what they were. I knew they were wrong, and I was determined that I would never do those things to my children. My dad believed in spanking. It wasn’t a tool in his parental toolbox, it was the toolbox. He used to say, “The foundation of discipline is fear.” And we feared him. That was how he was raised. All of his many siblings were devoted believers in this type of physical abuse which they knew was necessary for children to grow up to be good people. It was almost a religious zeal.
I remember a group of my dad’s siblings sitting around telling stories about their lives. One of my aunts talked about how she saw a couple of boys talking during a scout function. She explained how she snuck up behind them to hit them in the back of the head to get them to be quiet. Everyone laughed because that was “just like dad,” who was particularly fierce about “discipline.” I didn’t know my grandpa very well because he died when I was really young, but I was told awful stories about how he would beat them with a belt whenever they did anything wrong. It was terrifying to think that anyone could be more harsh than my dad, but according to him, his dad was much worse. I was lucky. My dad was so much better than his dad was.
When I had my first baby, it was all bliss. I was a perfect mother and I would show my dad that I was just as good as Eva was and then the needy hole in my heart that craved affirmation would be filled. I had quit my job as a fourth grade teacher when Devin was born to be a full time mom. Devin was perfect and I was perfect my dad was sure to agree. We went to visit my parents when Devin was ten months old and I put all my parenting skills on display. Devin wanted for nothing. I read to him, tickled him, played games with him, loving corrected and redirected him when needed. Dad pulled me aside. He said that I wasn’t disciplining my son. He explained that women are so kind and gentle that they don’t have the stomach to do what has to be done to make their children hurt and they spoil them. He said ideally Ben would do it, but he could see that Ben wasn’t that kind of person either. That was unfortunate. He insisted that I needed to spank my son and do it soon before he was spoiled. I was so shocked and frustrated. My dad was disappointed in me as a mother. Again, like so many times before, I wasn’t good enough. It made me angry and resentful of him. I thought, “Who spanks their ten month old?” My dad was just weird. About a year later, I had second thoughts.
My life was not so perfect a year later. When Devin was fifteen months old, his brother Layne was born. I was so desperate to survive by the time I had Layne, my dad’s ideas about discipline began to seem more appealing. After two rounds of therapy, I was back on the couch again. I was overwhelmed in a little two bedroom apartment trying my best to take care of two babies one just born and the other a rampaging toddler. Ben had just graduated from school and wasn’t making enough to make ends meet yet. We had to rely on the church to give us groceries. Dad’s discipline lectures started to get to me. I decided I would do it. I would spank my son. If it made my life easier, I was ready to try anything. Dad coached me on what to do. “Make sure you take his diaper off. You don’t have to hit him hard, just make it sting. That’s how you do it.” So I did.
Devin was a stubborn little guy. He had broken all the pictures on the walls of his room. His bedroom door was pitted and covered with chipped paint from the toys he would throw at it while he was in timeout. He was active and into everything. I decided I wanted him to leave my jewelry box alone. When he got into the jewelry, I took his diaper off and spanked him. He screamed and cried. I let him down and he went right back to the jewelry box. We did this several times and each time, he went right back to the box. I became frustrated. Maybe I wasn’t hitting him hard enough, I thought.
I put him in timeout, and while he was in his room, he climbed onto the changing table and emptied out the wipes out of the wipe dispenser. When I got him out of his room and I saw the mess, I felt the anger rise inside me. I was so frustrated!! I spanked him and then I tried to get him to help me put the wipes back, but he was off to make another mess somewhere. I put the wipes away, but the moment my back was turned, he had emptied them out again. Even in my anger and frustration, I felt a distinct impression that I had a choice to make. I could continue to spank and scold and make myself and my child miserable, or I could put the wipes on the high shelf.
Devin and I looked at one another. He had not a bit of defiance or fear in his wide blue eyes framed with thick lashes. He just looked at me, and I looked at him. He had turned my world upside down and yet I still loved him. I sat on the floor littered with wipes, and he came to me. I held him in my arms and he started talking to me in his sweet baby voice. He picked up each of his toys and he brought them to my lap and I just listened and marveled at the amazing little person that God had given me to love and care for. Soon after that, he fell asleep.
I put the wipes away and moved them to the high shelf. I also secured my jewelry box where he couldn’t reach it. Spanking just wasn’t for me, I decided. I would rather just put the wipes on the high shelf. Hours later, after dinner, I went to change Devin’s diaper. The light was getting low and I was trying to wipe off some stubborn dried on poop. It just wouldn’t come off. In horror, I looked closer at my child’s bottom. I turned on the light so that I could see better. There were bruises, not poop on his bottom. In my anger I had put purple speckled spots on my baby’s creamy skin.
I will never forget the shame and regret that I felt that day. I had hurt my child. I had done what my dad told me to do, and together, we had done this. I knew that it was wrong before I had done it. I had put my own comfort and convenience over the welfare of my child and done something that was contrary to my values. I felt sick. I vowed to never spank my son again. It was wrong and I knew it.
I was in therapy at the time. I told my counselor what had happened. He said, “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not going to tell you its okay.” I felt a wash of shame again. His criticism stung all the more because it came so infrequently. He followed up with some reassurances that if I changed my parenting strategy, Devin wouldn’t suffer long-term harm from what I had done.
For years afterward, my dad continued to insist that if I just spanked my kids that my problems with my depression would be over. Even after I told him it hadn’t worked, I remember he said, “Well, don’t throw the baby out with the bath…..” and he had some other ideas for ways I could instill fear and obedience into my little tornado baby. It was so disconcerting to me that he was continuing to pressure me to go against my conscience and hurt his grandson! He still vehemently believes that parents today are doing it all wrong and he has his brothers and sisters to back him up. It took me years to accept that I would never change his mind. No matter how perfect I was, it would never be enough. I would always be “Little E” to my dad, just a little girl in the shadow of a woman who was more myth than flesh and blood. Gradually, I came to accept it and let go of the need to please him.
Sometime in all of this, I had a dream that has haunted me. In the dream I was in heaven. The spirits were surrounding me, but there was someone I was looking for. Eva. At last I saw her. My heart sang with joy as I walked up to her. She had a blank and confused expression on her face. I explained that I was her granddaughter and I was born on her birthday. I had been looking forward to meeting her my whole life. She said coldly, “I don’t know you,” and then she walked away. Shame and devastating sadness overwhelmed me before I woke.
That dream revealed to me my greatest fear– The rejection of Eva. If she disapproved of me, I would have failed as a person. And yet, as the years have passed and I have walked a different path than my dad and his siblings, I see that I’m not really like them anymore. I have embraced the reality of the brokenness of my family and learned to see the beauty in it and the beauty in the person I have become even in my imperfection. Eva has changed in my mind too. She used to be the person I was determined to become, but now she is a mystery to me; a strange and unrelatible caricature of the perfectionism I have cast aside. The blank stare of her spirit eyes as they seemed to look through me in my dream express my own confusion. “I don’t know you.” Who is she? If I died today and faced my Grandma Eva, would she see me as family? Probably not, especially after this week.
My Aunts (Dad’s sisters) attacked me on Facebook on Wednesday night. The Trump presidency has driven a wedge between my parents and I. We had decided that politics were not something we would talk about, so I was surprised when my mom posted something on my Facebook. I had posted about the concerns I had about the Kurds in northern Syria. Her reply belittled my concerns. I felt disrespected and angry. If I had it to do over again, I would have deleted the post and told her to back off. Instead I replied to her post angrily, blaming her for the predicament the Kurds were in because of her support of the President. My Aunts decided that my angry reply to my mom was disrespectful and unkind and they felt the need to publicly admonish me. I was already upset about the Kurds and the conflict with my mom, but I had been coping. I had reached out to my mom with some feeling statements via text message, but had not heard back.
When I read my Aunt’s posts, I became hysterical. One Aunt belittled my feelings and shamed me by explaining how much my parents love and pray for me. After twenty years of battling with the perfectionistic demons my parents implanted in my brain, that comment hit a nerve. I beat my head into the hardwood floor and screamed. I went back and forth between blaming myself and hating myself to screaming at my Aunts as though they could hear me and venting my fury at them. All the while, I thought of how they would see me if they were there. They would think I was a lunatic; a defective and spoiled little brat. They would despise me all the more because of my pain at their words. And yet all I had done all my life was to do my best to do the right thing and be a good person. It would never be enough. I could drive myself to death and I would never be good enough for them. I would kill myself. That would prove to them that it was their fault; them and their stupid family and Eva and all the rest of them. I would go to hell and then they would know that I was really sick. I hadn’t made the whole thing up. I had taken medication and spent thousands of dollars on doctors and therapy and hundreds of hours of painful emotional processing, but they still blamed me for my pain. If I was dead they would know that it was real and it wasn’t my fault.
At the time it made sense, but in the cold aftermath of reason, I realize that even my suicide would be blamed on me. Even my death would only confirm to my family that I should have been more perfect. Thankfully, Ben was home. He kept me safe and I took some sedatives and eventually I was able to calm down. I’ve had a pretty bad headache, but that’s probably as much from crying as from my self inflicted injury. The last couple of days I reflected on how much the opinions of my aunts meant to me. Why?
Why does their approval continue to mean so much? Why can’t I see myself as a good person without meeting their expectations? I’ve unfriended almost all of my dad’s family on social media. I’m also taking a break from my parents for a while. Right now, I’ve decided I don’t need them and their dysfunction in my life. I don’t need their parenting judgments and their opinions about whether or not I treat my parents with enough respect.
I know I’m human and the last few days anger and horror and fear have clouded my reasoning. I’ve said things in anger that I probably shouldn’t have. I’ve assumed things and after sincere reflection, I see that reality is not as I thought it was. I’m wandering on the beach of shame feeling the tide flow in and out. Sometimes I’m a good person, and sometimes I’m an idiot. Sometimes I’m the only one that sees what’s happening, and sometimes I’m the one that plays the fool. In the end it’s probably somewhere in between and that’s okay.
But I’m glad I’m alive. I’m glad I have the mental health resources and support network to keep me progressing in my recovery. What would my Grandma Eva think of me? I don’t know, and in the end, it really doesn’t matter. My Savior is my Lord and my judge and he knows my heart. What she thinks of me is between her and her Savior. All I can do is be the best kind of broken I can be, and always come back to the feet of Him who is Mighty to Save.
I have hope that maybe I’ve been able to create a more healthy environment for my children than I grew up in and that my parents grew up in. That’s what the Savior wants me to do. When he commands me to honor my father and my mother that doesn’t mean I need my parents to approve of me. I honor them by following Him even when they disagree with what that looks like. I can leave false and toxic traditions behind as I seek to walk a path that better aligns with what God wants for me and my children. When they grow up and have kids of their own, I hope they follow their hearts and raise their kids the way they feel is right. And they can whine to their counselor all they want about the ways I screwed up their life. They can even post about it and write it on a blog! I hope they do. I’m sure they’ll remember things differently than I will. I’m just glad I’ll be alive to read it.
It’s been a difficult time again. A ‘low period’ as various healthcare professional like to call it – don’t you just love the power of understatement. What a‘low period’ means for me is a blackness – I heard someone on TV the other day calling depression a blackness and there is simply no other colour that will do. Red is angry.Grey, black and washed out are the colours we have in our limited palette to describe something that is hard to describe, a situation where there seems nothing to hope for. But also it is a time when the physical act of placing one foot in front of the other acquires a level of difficulty that leaves me in awe of others who seem able to do it.
Interestingly I heard on the radio this morning an item about the lamentable under-diagnoses of PTSD available to members of the police…
“I look forward to his smile every day!” she said with her characteristic sparkle in her eyes as I dropped off Austin this morning. “So do I,” I said subdued. And I remembered that I do look forward to his smile. Every day when I pick him up from preschool and recognition lights his eyes, when his brothers come home from school, when he sees that I made him a Nutella sandwich folded in half, when we get to his favorite page of the picture book. His smile. His excitement. His boundless energy and imagination. In a depression fogged mind, those moments are like a drug. They get me through. “Look at them,” she said lovingly. I saw those little four year olds sitting at their desks in her classroom. They are so beautiful. Everything good in the world seemed crammed into that little preschool class this morning. “This is the best job in the world,” she said. And she’s right. Caring for these little ones is the best job in the world. Austin is my sunshine and my joy. I walked out of the school with my heart a little lighter as I thought of my boy and my dog. Sweet Pepper would be waiting for me at home.
Yesterday, Pepper was sitting in my lap with her liquid eyes searching mine. She seems at times to have the wisdom of the universe in the depths of those eyes and I wonder if I’ve had it all wrong. If God isn’t above us but below us. Is God really in marble halls and stately throne rooms in the vast heavens? Or is he in the furry body of a rescue dog…….Perhaps both. Austin and I were talking about Jesus last night before bed. Pepper was curled up beside him. We had just read Owl Moon, so he was uncharacteristically calm. He said, “Did Jesus make us?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “And Pepper made Jesus.” I think he meant Jesus made Pepper, but the thought of Pepper being the creator of the Savior was intriguing. She looked at me again with those sagacious eyes and I could almost imagine her as queen of the universe.
And so the boy and the dog get me up in the morning. They give me a reason to get out of bed. My older sons have to fend for themselves. My ten year old came into my room ten minutes after his tardy bell had rung. His face was unruffled. “You’re late bud. Why aren’t you at school?” I asked. Realization dawned on his face and then it crumpled into despair. He has been tardy so much this year. I have screamed at and pleaded and punished both myself and him to fix the problem. Today I just hugged him and said, “It’s okay. Everyone is late sometimes. Just get to school. It will be okay.”
****Trigger warning; murder of children*****
Last night I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake after reading a story about a Pennsylvania husband and father who came home from work on Valentine’s Day to find his wife and six year old son murdered in his home. He was shot in the forehead, but not seriously injured. It wasn’t until later that he found out who had tried to kill him and who had destroyed his family. It was his one surviving teenage son who has now been charged.
This father had a good life. He had a wife he loved. She was in the middle of making his favorite meal for dinner when she was killed. He dropped the flowers he had bought for her on his way home when he was shot. The teenage son appeared to love his little brother dearly. What happened? There have been theories. Apparently the parents were racially prejudiced. Some find comfort in the thought that somehow something these people did caused this tragedy to occur. I find no such comfort because I know, as all of us do deep down, that tragedy can happen to any of us. The renowned doctor in China who tried to raise the warning about the coronavirus covid-19 died from it. Hundreds of people are dying because they chose the wrong cruise ship, they live in the wrong city, they boarded the wrong plane. It is estimated that 2% of those who contract the virus die. As I considered the 75,000 people who have contracted it. That is thousands of people. Thousands of families ripped apart and changed forever. Why? Because of the random cruelty of life.
At work Ben got a message from the IT department of American Airlines. An employee of theirs collapsed at his desk job. He was rushed to the emergency room where he died. His wife is due to give birth to their second child tomorrow. He has a three year old daughter. As I looked at the photo of their family, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. They were clearly Indian (from India). They looked to be in their twenties or early thirties; thin and fit with the wife very pregnant and a cute little girl with short dark hair. I have no idea how he died or why. I don’t know if they have family support or if he had some kind of insurance. Fortunately the American Airlines family has raised a considerable amount of money for them. Still, the story left me shocked and confused.
So last night my mind ruminated to a dark place. Exhausted and unable to rest, thoughts of despair overwhelmed me. I tried to pray. I tried to connect with God. There was no relief. There was no faith or hope. No future beyond the darkness surrounding me. I finally fell asleep and woke up late and exhausted.
And now I come to the keyboard to write again. To try to make sense of it all. I have a therapy appointment this afternoon, so hopefully Shama will be able to help me. On the surface, I’m doing really well. I’ve been organizing and cleaning. My house looks better than it has in a very long time. Old piles and projects that have been cluttering my ADHD life for literally years are now put away. New projects are arising with new positive energy. Still, it feels like I’m playing the part of Atlas carrying the world on my shoulders. I’m running the car on fumes and when it stops I put in a half gallon of gas so that I can drive another mile. I’m irritable and on edge. I’m one news story away from despair.
Breathe……and again……taking in the present moment. Life is a crucible, but God is good. He gives us moments- brief but sufficient, to refocus and recharge. All good things come from him. Nothing bad happens on this Earth but that he can turn it to good. Even when the Son of God was taken by men, humiliated, tortured, and murdered; God turned it to good. God can take the political rancor and polarization, the rank injustice and cruelty, the chaos and destruction, and turn it to good. And he will. The Savior said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” I used to think that was a strange thing. Why would the sad be blessed? I was taught that happiness was a virtue and it seemed a contradiction. It doesn’t anymore. If you are already happy in this world, why would you look for a better world? If you are happy on your own, why would you come to Christ for comfort? Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed be the name of my merciful comfort, even Jesus Christ, Him who ransoms me from the darkness of my night. I will place my trust in thee and cast my burdens at thy feet. I will dare to hope another day.
I’ve been following Chelsea for a while now. She posts specifically about the challenges of parenting with mental illness. Her mental health blog helps me not feel alone.
Awhile back, I advocated in favor of having children when you have a mental illness. Even at the time, I felt wishy-washy in doing so. I may talk the talk and chase after the children I’ve birthed, but I don’t exactly walk the walk.
Birthing children and raising them is HARD. Doing so whilst battling Depression or Anxiety or Bipolar is HARDER.
However, unless you’ve got a serious condition, producing a mini-you or two is possible. It’s worth it. It’s fun.
To anyone sitting on the fence of indecision, having a child is the best thing I ever did. To those reading this at 2 a.m. and feeling ready to return their child to the hospital, I’ll add that I’ve been there, too.
Mental illness or not, you need some helps in place when a kid comes around. Even those who don’t regularly admit to mental issues need helps. Babies…
The Broken Handmaid 