Depression Busters – The Broken Handmaid

The Truman Show

January 13, 2023 Broken Handmaid of the LordLeave a comment

Sometimes writing about my own life feels so personal and stirs up so much drama. It’s no wonder that writers make up people to write stories about or find real people they can write about. It feels so much more comfortable to write about others rather than engage with our own stories so raw and messy. Vicarious drama is risk free, so I am going to indulge today.

I’ve been loosely following the drama of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as they have tried to extricate themselves from the royal family. In his interview with the Late Show comedian Stephen Colbert, Harry made a reference to his life as being like the Truman Show.

I happen to love the Truman Show which is a movie about a man whose life is televised for the world to watch. Everyone knows about the world outside and that it is all a show, except Truman who has been lied to and exploited his entire life. The show ends when he finally breaks free of his prison; an elaborate set that was designed to imitate reality.

There are a lot of parallels between poor Truman and Harry. I remember Harry as a plain little red-headed boy. I was a newly minted graduate of Sugar-Salem High School when Princess Diana died and I watched with the rest of the world as her two boys were forced to parade their trauma for the cameras. Over the years I’ve watched Diana’s boys in the checkout lines at the grocery store or as I waited for a haircut. Their faces, their weddings, and the births of their children have sold millions of magazines and newspapers. Only after Harry and Meghan started speaking about suicide and mental health did they seem like real people to me.

I’ve found myself relating to Harry and his recovery journey. I too have a very traditional family with rigid roles and a hierarchical structure. I too have struggled with mental health problems and overcome many hurdles to get treatment. I too have fought to change institutions that are fundamentally incompatible with healthy living in a modern world. I too have sacrificed cherished relationships, traveled a long way from my homeland, and carved out an existence where I can live my life on my own terms. Like Harry, I love my heritage, I cherish my family, I respect the institutions that have made me who I am; but I also know the ways I have been hurt and that the reasons I have left these institutions and relationships are valid. I too have chosen to share parts of my story and faced the backlash that comes with that level of honesty.

Everyone gets to read Harry’s story and many have passed judgement on him. It’s difficult for me to hear the judgement in the interviews. Yesterday I watched an interview with Michael Strahan at ABC.

“You get a chance to tell your story now. Your brother may never have that chance.”

“How would your mom feel about your relationship now?”

“Do you feel any responsibility in the relationship breakdown?”

“Some critics are going to say, you’re taking private struggles and you’re bringing it into the public and you’re making money off them.”

In taking the initiative to tell his story outside of the usual channels of palace communications, Harry has broken with tradition. Rather than see his book as revealing the rifts that were created by a toxic system, some prefer to see the book itself as the problem and the author as responsible for the pain it shares. I thought Harry’s answers were thoughtful, measured, and compassionate. He shows himself capable of self reflection and insight. His experiences resonate with mine. I have shared a lot of my story on my blog and I’ve had to take responsibility for my choice to share and the consequences of that choice. It takes a lot of courage to engage with the level of vulnerability Harry has. I understand that on some level because I have chosen to share my story. Composing and then owning your own narrative is an important milestone in recovery.

His interview with Stephen Colbert was especially good. The most potent part of that interview to me was the part Harry said, “The moment I started doing therapy, it’s like we started speaking a different language…..they couldn’t understand me.” I felt that in my gut. I felt like Stephen Colbert had less judgement than some of the other interviewers so it was easier for me to watch.

I read a Washington Post review of the book this morning that was pretty good but ended with a disturbing take.

One ends up almost longing for the days when royals just poisoned each other or waged civil war. If nothing else, they got it out of their systems.

I’d like to ask the author, is Harry just a character to be killed off with poison or civil war when we tire of hearing about his pain? Maybe that would be more comfortable for us as spectators, but personally, I find it a relief that we have progressed as a civilization that royal families are using books instead of weapons and armies, and therapy instead of imprisonment and executions. Perhaps Harry and Meghan will be able to make a good life for themselves and their little ones. I can hardly imagine a more abusive and dysfunctional life than the one Harry endured. No amount of money or fame can replace a mother’s love. No title is worth sacrificing your authenticity. Perhaps their pain will lead to meaningful changes. It seems to me that the toxicity that has built up around the British Monarchy and the British press needs to be addressed and that Harry and Meghan have done us all a service by revealing it. The fact that many royal family relationships became collateral damage in the process is, as Harry said, very sad.

For those who seem obsessed with hating on Harry and Meghan, I can only assume that they see a different side to them than I do. I acknowledge that there are many who see them as grifters and privileged elites who are out of touch with the rest of humanity. I can also respect those who adore the late Queen Elizabeth, who seems by all accounts to have been a remarkable woman who lived a life of service. They likely find Harry and Meghan to be attacking the heritage and legacy she spent a lifetime constructing. For my part, I see them as a reflection of myself and my own attempts to individuate from my family of origin.

Individuation is a theme in the scriptures. Manmade institutions become corrupted and rigid. They, like the wine skins the Savior referred to, are too brittle to contain people determined to grow and change. I can only hope that God has designed some solution to the paradox of the human condition. God inspires man and man builds structures which then corrupt and decay over time, betraying the hopes and aspirations that they were intended for. From the ashes of loss and destruction, we must build again, often far from home. Like Moses and Abraham, we wander in search of the promised land. If we are lucky, we tap into our inner patriarch or matriarch and forge a legacy and a heritage for those who come after us. We abandon comfortable dysfunction in favor of growing pains. We eschew the ease of tradition for the risks of innovation. We wander in the wilderness of the world and take up the mantle of the trail blazer.

“In case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!”

The Truth is an Ugly Duckling

January 11, 2023 Broken Handmaid of the LordLeave a comment

It has been so long since I’ve had the courage to write again! I only wrote four posts last year. There is a part of me that longs for the comfortable days of hiding before I was open with my story and my pain. I have to remind myself that honesty is a virtue and that pain is a universal human experience. It is only as we share our pain that we can find the strength to overcome it.

Last year was a year of tremendous growth for me. I’ve been going to therapy every week and sometimes even twice a week. My life is working for the most part and I have what I need. My circle is very small and everyone in it understands mental health. That has been so important. It turns out that quantity isn’t as important as quality in my relationships. I no longer use social media regularly. I’ve found the benefits of it are not enough to justify the trouble it causes me.

Unfortunately, over the past couple of years I have developed some kind of chronic illness. I suspect that the stress of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the political upheaval has overwhelmed my body. I am going to many doctors to try to figure out what my jumbled collection of symptoms means, but in the meantime I am finding ways to cope. Healthy food, regular exercise, plenty of sleep, and lower levels of stress tend to help reduce my symptoms. There are some treatments that are helping me to function almost as well as I did before I got sick, so that is a blessing! Depression and anxiety live in the body as well as the brain and age compounds the damage.

I feel very good today, so I am grateful that! I hope to post some valuable content on my blog regularly again. I’ve spent much time ruminating about the benefits and drawbacks of making a mental health recovery public. There are benefits. I hope that my readers have learned some helpful information about mental wellness and how to live a more conscious and honest life. I hope I have modeled openness, introspection, and compassion. There are also drawbacks. Honesty can be painful and relationships built on lies are broken upon it. It isn’t the honesty that is to blame but the lies. But the lies are so beautiful! And the truth is an ugly duckling.

I hope the New Year finds you all well and warm. If you chose to join me on another year of self-discovery, let’s buckle up and get ready for the ride.

Hinges

May 13, 2022 Broken Handmaid of the LordLeave a comment

May 13, 2022

This morning I got a notification from Google photos from four years ago. I tapped on it and it was a picture of my mom and dad sitting next to a small Layne. I scrolled through the photos of that visit that seems like a lifetime ago. It wasn’t a perfect visit. It was awkward, but we could sit in the same room and at least on the surface, everything was okay.

And then I watched as pictures and videos of joyous times scrolled past. Austin with his chubby baby cheeks, Pepper in her tiny puppyhood, and then later as her body leaned out into adolescence. Every moment was so beautiful and yet tinged with the pain of loss. My boys are growing up. Things will never be as they were. Also the crushing feelings of inadequacy. I should have loved them better! I should have enjoyed those moments more! If I had been someone else, something else…… I know it doesn’t make sense. Even as the tears pour down my face, it doesn’t make sense. It just hurts.

Gardening is joyful right now. Here are some blackberries from our garden. We will have hundreds this year.

I hate depression. I hate the self loathing. I hate the negative self talk stream in my head. I hate the fog that leeches the beauty away from my eyes. I wish I could banish it. Like Pandora in reverse, I could trap it away in a box. But it never goes away forever. I can come up for air sometimes. Sometimes I actually feel good for a while. I just have to remember that those times exist and will come back again.

I just came off my period. I didn’t bleed much but I had more flow than usual. I also had abdominal pain, bloating, weight gain, and mood issues. I also am still recovering from Covid. I tested positive about a month ago. It was a mild case and although I haven’t had symptoms of the actual illness for a couple of weeks, I am still trying to dig myself out of a hole of housework and garden chores that have piled up. Also, my oldest son has been taking all his end of the year AP exams and auditioning for marching band leadership so he hasn’t been doing his chores. (Not that he was doing much before.) Whenever I ask the other boys for help with his chores they get resentful and whiney.

I wish I was someone who could stand up to my kids, be confident, and not wallow in self conscious indecision! I’m weak. I know it. And all I can do is wish things were different. Or do I? Can I shame myself into becoming that person? Can I force myself; to squeeze the last drop of physical and emotional energy to reshape myself into the assertive and powerful persona I desire?

As I reflect on that, I remember some thoughts I had a while back about how through therapy, I’ve come to see how little control we really have over our lives. We are born to parents who are given the impossible task of nurturing us in a fallen world full of problems. Those parents have scars from their own childhoods and they pass on the injuries to their children. Like a blight in the garden, young and old, no one is spared. This world is not a Garden of Eden full of fruit and flowers. It is a wilderness full of disease and decay.

That realization has given me compassion for myself, my parents, and all the other miserable hurting humans on this planet. It has taken away the sting of my judgement. I have set down the judge’s gavel to extend a hand of fellowship. I know, even in this season of doubt when the mustard tree of faith goes limp in the hot sun, that a better being will come along who is worthy of that mantle. As for me, I will be a friend to mankind.

Just as important as that vital truth is its opposite. I may not have much control over my life. I may be a victim of a myriad of circumstances. Still, I have more control over my life than anyone else does. I have the power I need. God has given me what I need to accomplish His purposes, I just have to figure out how. Like a gate, the power is in the hinge. The gate cannot control the weather, the soil, the material it is constructed of, or anything else, but it can swing open and shut. It is small, but the hinge is key.

I am swimming today in an ocean of hormonal chaos. I can’t change that cocktail, but I can choose to have faith in the Master who calmed the tempest. This storm will pass. The laundry will get done- or not. The kids will finish out the school year. There will be many messes and too much screen time this summer. There will be imperfect family outings and many things broken. I can choose to embrace broken things. I can choose to see the beauty in myself and my imperfect life.

I can choose to take the emotional energy I have and give myself a hug. I visualized myself split into two beings. One a mother, and one a sad young teenaged girl. The girl was overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy in a changing body she didn’t understand. The mother just sat next to her on the couch and cradled her head. The mother couldn’t tell her that someday she would understand the strange cycle of physical and emotional changes of womanhood. She couldn’t reassure her that it wouldn’t get worse and more difficult to manage. She could only just sit with her; both of them conscious of the complexity and challenge of it all, but knowing that they weren’t alone.

I’ve been embracing my inner teenager lately. As my oldest son enters his senior year, I am awash in memories of my own high school days. Life is too short to have boring hair. Teenagers understand that and so do I!

Ben and I raised some black swallowtail butterflies. Saturday I looked in the cage and saw that a butterfly had slipped out of his chrysalis and onto the floor. He was struggling in a wrinkled and mishappen tangle, his abdomen swollen with fluid that could not fill his wings. I picked him up and suspended him for many desperate moments as he made the transition to his new life as a butterfly. Here he is all ready to make his way in the world! As Mother Theresa would say, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”

Beauty in Broken Places

February 8, 2022 Broken Handmaid of the LordLeave a comment

I watched Kamila Varieva skate last night. There is something different about her. The announcers see it and struggle to describe it. It isn’t that she’s an excellent athlete, artist, and performer. It is all those things, but there is a secret ingredient that is impossible to define. I have watched hundreds of skaters perform, but Varieva is different. I’ve turned it over and over in my mind. Why?

Kamila Varieva performs her short program in which she broke the record with her score. She is currently competing in the 2022 olympic winter games.

I can only think she has tapped into something inside herself; a divine spark or a secret knowledge about who she is and what her purpose is. She is able to express on the ice something that every person on the planet longs for whether they know it or not. She is her authentic self. Without excuse, without deception, without holding anything back; she bares her soul for the world to see.

Everyone knows she has dedicated her life to skating. She lives and breathes it. It is almost as though she is some kind of ice creature who was born with skates on her feet and sleeps on a bed of snow. She reveals herself without shame to be judged. She is the product of Russian discipline, intellect, and skill. I try to imagine what her life as been.

I had a childhood friend who was a German exchange student. She was a beautiful dancer with long blonde hair. Once we talked about ballet. She told me her grandmother was a professional ballerina in Hitler’s Germany and she even danced for Hitler once. She explained how difficult the life of a dancer is in Germany because of the pressure. She said her grandmother’s feet were badly deformed and she had a lot of problems with them as she aged. My friend had no desire to become a professional dancer. She told me stories about Russian dancers. I remember her look of fear as her gentle accented voice said, “Very few dancers can survive in a Russian school.”

I assume Kamila Varieva is not a ballet dancer, but she dances like one. What has she survived in her young life? Is she like the widows in the Marvel Universe; a slave to forces beyond her control? Life is complicated and I can only imagine what her life has been and what it will be ten or twenty years from now. I do know that her skating has inspired me. I know that somehow, she has taken the life she was given and made something incredibly beautiful that communicates with me across the miles and miles between us; across language and national barriers; beyond culture or race. She showed me what is possible when you dare to find yourself. She has done this because of, or perhaps in spite of, the life she was given and the choices she has made.

Sometimes my life feels meaningless. Living in the city has a soul sucking effect on me. I am just another person in the line, another face in the crowd, another car on the endless conveyor belt of the metroplex machine. And yet, I exist. In this broken world, I can gather up the pieces of my broken self and make something beautiful, something inspiring, something authentic and vulnerable and original. I can follow the example of that Russian child of fifteen and dare to express the hope that beauty and love and joy are possible.

In the past two years of this endless pandemic, we have all suffered mentally. I have been so fortunate to have a counselor to talk to every week even though I can’t see her in person. In the past six years she has been more than a counselor, she has been a friend. In spite of the incredible difficulties I have faced, I have thrived. I feel strong as I find solutions to problems and build a better life for myself.

I got a set of mandala stencils that I’ve been playing with. I did this in Prisma colored pencils.

Last week I was hit by various triggers. Like Jack-in-the-Box toys, they all seemed to pop the weasel at the same time. I did my art. I allowed myself to feel those feelings I had tucked away because I wasn’t able to process them at the time. I felt the sadness, the fear, and the anger, and then I spilled them onto the pages of my journal. Funny thing about Jack-in-the-Box, he can only be triggered if you shut him in the box. If you open the lid, and let him out on your terms, he loses his power. It takes so much courage to face your triggers. It’s worth it. The feelings aren’t as scary as you think they are. Just like Jack.

This mandala is also from a stencil. I am coloring it with Prisma colored pencils, gel pens, and Tombow brush markers.

Today as I did my SuperNatural Oculus Quest workout, sweat was pouring down my face and into my mouth. I could feel aching muscles as I hit each target. I remembered Varieva’s grace under enormous pressure, I remembered her falling on the ice after an impossible quad. She pushed herself past the limit of any woman ever to skate in the olympics. And she fell. She got back up and finished her performance. She wasn’t perfect. She was still world class; she broke the world record; she was inspiring. I hope she knows somehow that her fall doesn’t define her. I hope she will learn the lesson it has taken me a lifetime to learn; that perfection is an illusion. It limits you. No one and nothing in the world is perfect. We can only dare to dance beneath the bar of perfection, and maybe touch it. Briefly. Perfection isn’t the goal. It isn’t the destination. It can be part of the journey, but God requires us to dance by faith; the faith that grace and beauty can live in broken places and in broken people.

Drawn from stencil with gel pens and brush markers.

When I took off the headset at the end of my workout, I had to blink. It wasn’t real. It felt so real! I thought of the miracle of VR. I hit targets in China, Scotland, and a dozen other places I didn’t recognize. Some I couldn’t even pronounce, but I felt like I was there. I interacted with a coach I’ve never met. I thought of the science and technology that made such an experience possible. People can do such incredible things! God has made us a little below the angels. He waits for us to find ourselves. We are the greatest gift he has given us and if we unlock the potential within, we will amaze ourselves with the majesty of his creation.

Because there are so many people on this planet, it is easy to forget the worth of a soul. Infinite. The value of infinite things is a constant. It doesn’t matter if there are billions of people on this planet, each person is still of infinite value. Each person, no matter their circumstances or their choices, is touched by the finger of God. If we want to know God, we can find him by understanding his creation. The self.

Thanks for taking this journey with me as I find myself. Let us join our faith together, take on discouragement and fear, lift ourselves up to dance on this mortal stage, and if we fail, we can pick ourselves up and try again. The rewards are worth the effort.

Chasing Rainbows and Fleeing Shadows

January 28, 2022 Broken Handmaid of the LordLeave a comment

Sport’s Illustrated did a story on Shawn Bradley this month. Shawn Bradley was a larger than life figure for me growing up. I remember a New Era article showing him with his girlfriend who had to stand on a chair to dance with him. Basketball was a big deal to me and the small town I grew up in. Shawn Bradley seemed to have it all. He was likable, tall, athletic, good looking, and Mormon. He was everything I wanted in a husband and I happened to marry a man who has all of those same qualities. I heard vague stories in the background of my life about Shawn Bradley playing professional basketball, but when this Sport’s Illustrated feature came up on my Twitter feed, I was curious. Surely he was retired by now and coaching or working part-time with speaking engagements or maybe owning car dealerships. Why would Sport’s Illustrated be interested in that?

Imagine my shock when I read the article describing his life now. He and his wife of 25 years divorced. The article said that he is estranged from the six children from his first marriage. Wow. He remarried and rebuilt a life for himself including the hobby of bicycling. Unfortunately, he had a tragic biking accident a year ago that left him paralyzed. Now he is faced with rebuilding his life again as a paraplegic. My mind keeps returning to Shawn Bradley and the shocking turns his life has taken.

It has been a year since I left the church. My life is so different today than it was just a year ago. As I read the article about Shawn Bradley and the state he is in now I see stark parallels between us. When that New Era article came out, we were different people. Who could have looked down the long lens of time and seen who we would become? Who could have anticipated the strange and winding path that would lead us to where we are today in January of 2022?

This January has been different in so many ways. This month I have been thinking about the concept of self-improvement. Usually I am busy drafting New Year’s resolutions, but I have been conflicted this year. My husband is a teacher in the Elder’s Quorum now and he taught a lesson last week based on a talk by Elder Dunn called “One Percent Better.” I haven’t read or listened to the talk, but the title spurred a lot of thoughts about the concept of self-improvement and the moral imperative to improve the self that I have internalized over my lifetime. The church is hardly the only source of pressure to improve the self and be constantly striving toward self-improvement. Schools and workplaces demand it. Corporations market millions of products promised to improve the self. Beauty and hygiene commercials stoke fears and anxieties in their audience which they then promise to alleviate. Self-help books persuade us that the drab life we have can be transformed with a few easy steps. How could I help but internalize the message that the self must be constantly challenged to achievement? The problem with that is that self improvement isn’t always easy or even possible.

What about Shawn Bradley? Is he a better athlete today than he was a year ago? Did he fail to improve because he didn’t read the right self-help book? Did he fail to draft the right New Year’s resolutions? No. He fell victim to a condition that all of us will fall to sooner or later. He fell to mortality. To live in mortality is to be at constant risk of accident, illness, or death. To live in mortality is to walk the slow march to the grave. Rather than a program in self-improvement, mortality is the opposite. It is a story of decay. We don’t improve as we age. Our brains and bodies become less capable as time passes. We can work to delay this, but we can’t stop it.

Rather than become despondent in the face of this grim reality, I choose to meditate on it. What is God trying to teach me? Obviously, he doesn’t care nearly as much about self improvement as I do. If he did, he would have designed a mortal experience in which I could incrementally improve over time. Like a video game, each level I pass I would gain greater skills and freedoms. At ninety, I would be able to fly, have lightning fast reflexes, a flawless complexion, and the ability to do calculus in my head. If self improvement, at least as I have internalized the concept, were His goal, He would have designed this world differently.

Perhaps, I reasoned, the goal is to fight mortality. I will be 43 this year, but what if I could look and feel like I was 30? What if I dedicate my life to this end? I could use plastic surgery, creams, sudoku puzzles, hair dye, and exercise programs in order to cheat mortality and delay the inevitable? But, what is the purpose in fighting an enemy you will never be able to beat? And if I did, I would feel like a rabbit trying to outwit a prowling fox; constantly living in fear. Is that the life God wants for me?

I don’t have any answers right now and I find I’m okay with that. A good question takes time to answer and this one won’t likely be answered any time soon. There is one thing I do know. The way I have internalized moral self-improvement is toxic. It has stolen so much joy from my life. Christ paid the price for me. I don’t have to earn entrance into His kingdom. It is a gift. I wish I could have learned that decades ago. I have lost teeth to anxiety grinding. I have trouble with chronic inflammation and joint pain. My face is etched in worry lines. Why? Because I believed for so long that I had to earn God’s love by being more than who I was and always achieving more. I fear I have set my children’s feet on the same destructive path.

I had a conversation with my teenager as he was planning his school schedule last year. He loaded up on AP and pre-AP classes and I wondered why. Why is he so driven? Why does he surround himself with friends who are smarter and more talented than he is? Why does he push himself so hard? Will he find himself burned out and plagued with numerous health problems in twenty years? I just told him that I would love him no matter what classes he takes and I warned him that driving himself and pushing himself can have health consequences. I don’t think my words carried too much weight since he is a teenager and thinks he is invincible. I am in no rush to convince him otherwise. He has a whole lifetime to learn the sad truth. Maybe someday my words will come back to him and help him learn to love himself better.

Self improvement isn’t always a bad thing, when you know what you’re doing. My exercise program is in full swing. It helps me manage my anxiety and sleep better. It reduces my arthritis and inflammation symptoms. It especially helps my mood. When you don’t know what you’re doing, self improvement quests are a different story. When Ben and I were first married, we lived in a basement apartment underneath a couple from India who were in graduate school. The man’s name was Ravi and he owned a nice looking red Jeep Cherokee. Unfortunately, he kept making “improvements” to it. First, he attached tinted window film that was badly bubbled. Then, he taped up the car and spray painted it with aerosol cans. Each month Ben and I would cringe as our neighbor made new changes to his vehicle. The paint job was especially egregious with patchy coverage and long lines of streaky drips. I think at some point he jacked up the tires. Ravi had started out with a decent car and ended up with an eyesore. Sometimes I think my own projects of self improvement have been as amateurish and ill advised as Ravi’s. Overconfident, I was sure I knew how to improve on God’s creation. Time and experience have proved I would have been better off just letting myself become who God designed me to be. He is my creator and I need to learn first about what exactly he has created before I start trying to make changes.

I pray for Shawn Bradley, his broken family and his broken body. I pray that as we both face the challenges of mortality, that God will take us by the hand and help us rebuild. There is a plan and a purpose to our suffering and we are never alone even though it feels like it. One thing I know, there can be joy during hard times just as there are oases in the desert. Talent and skill don’t produce happiness. Self-improvement is a seductive illusion; the idea that we can craft our own destiny by sheer will is a lie that sells a lot of products but leaves us chasing rainbows and fleeing shadows. This year I want to focus on understanding myself better. Maybe then I can cast the beam out of my eye and see myself clearly before attempting my self improvements.

To all my readers, may you have a blessed new year. May you recover from your illnesses, may friends be near you to bind up your hurts, may blessings rain down on you from unexpected places. Thank you again for walking this path with me.

Codependency Virtue/Vices

November 26, 2021 Broken Handmaid of the LordLeave a comment

Today I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving and gratitude and creating the life I want to live. This month has been hard. My Kindergartener got sick and was home from school almost a whole week. Then I crashed on my bike and sustained some injuries. Then I got sick and was in bed for several days with fever, chills, a wicked sore throat, and the usual yuck of fall illnesses. Finally, I strained my ankle at the trampoline park. With all of this I have had a resurgence of depression symptoms including some pretty intense episodes of suicidal ideation. My counselor contracted pneumonia and has not been available. Naturally I was very unhappy when family-of-origin drama began.

At the beginning of this year I did a cut off with my parents. I have avoided writing on my blog about this for a couple of reasons. First, it is extremely painful and for those who have experienced it, you understand just how painful and why I wouldn’t want to post about it. Another reason is that I’ve been afraid of the backlash I might get from well meaning family members with little to no mental health experience. I thought that perhaps if I veiled some of my expressions in poetry that I might avoid some of the latter. Unfortunately, I have still managed to garner the backlash I tried to prevent.

As I have reflected on my blog’s purpose, I realize that I have been holding back useful information from my intended readers. My intended readers are those who have some experience with mental health or at least some desire to learn more, help loved ones, and build a more nurturing environment for our minds. My intended readers are familiar with phrases like “family of origin,” “childhood trauma,” “suicidal ideation,” and “recovery journey.” My intended readers understand that the world of mental health is complicated and that it is best to withhold judgement of those who suffer and their loved ones who suffer with them. My intended readers deserve more vulnerable and direct communications than my poetry posts this year.

This is not the first cutoff I have done with my parents, but this is the longest one. I tried to resume some limited contact with my mom around mother’s day, but we are back to no contact until after the holidays. Family of origin drama is just too much for me right now. I have to be there for my children for the next six weeks.

It’s hard to cope with the reality that you experienced serious trauma as a child. It is almost unbearable when those you love who hurt you so badly deny and minimize your experience, make excuses for themselves, and then shame you for the pain. I have been accused of being ungrateful, unforgiving, and cruel. Those minimizations and accusations hurt more than the original offense. I am comforted to think that the Savior knows the pain I feel. Perhaps he alone will ever truly understand. He whose piercing gaze fell upon the leper and resisted looking away will not fail to see me in my broken state. Like them, I cry out to him, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

This post is for those who, like me, who find that in their recovery journey, that they must limit contact with people they love. Love is not a purchased commodity. Those we love have not earned our love. In order for love to be real it must be freely given with no expectation of reciprocation. Sometimes we have built empathetic connections of love with people who continually hurt us and keep us from building a healthy and happy life. They sabotage our efforts, contradict our therapists, and pressure us to continue harmful behaviors. These relationships are unlikely to change unless the empathetic connection changes. Sometimes the relationship can’t continue without great harm to recovery.

Cut offs are so hard. We love the person. We want them to understand. We want them to see that they are hurting us and for it to matter to them. We want the unconditional love from them that we have been giving. Some people are just unable to give that kind of love. It’s okay to let go. Sometimes it’s important to let go. This is hard for people raised in codependency.

My family of origin has a lot of problems with codependency. I was raised to believe that I needed to be unselfish to be good. That belief system has driven me repeatedly into burnout. I am finally making some progress in rooting out those codependent virtue/vices and replacing them with healthier values.

Virtue/Vice One: I need to put others first. Selfish women don’t deserve love. I was taught that women feel fulfilled in the home taking care of their family. I was taught that good wives and mothers put their husband and children’s needs first, often go without and make sacrifices for their family. I thought that when I skipped meals, showers, personal growth opportunities, and social activities that I was being a good person. Over time, resent built up and motivation evaporated. I thought that my sacrifices would make me feel fulfilled and that my efforts would be reciprocated and rewarded. Instead it seemed that everyone became accustomed to my behavior and even felt entitled to it. The love I craved felt insufficient and it was. I wasn’t behaving virtuously, I was being codependent. I was expecting my husband and children’s love to sustain me and make up for my neglect of myself. It left everyone frustrated and resentful.

Now I understand that putting others first doesn’t make me a good person, it makes me a resentful person. I understand that I don’t have to earn love. My husband and children love me because they are empathetic and loving people. I love them because I am an empathetic and loving person. I don’t earn their love with my unselfish behavior. I model healthy self care for them and teach them to do the same. They aren’t responsible for my happiness and I am not responsible for theirs.

Codependency keeps us in unhealthy relationships for too long. It is a habit of thinking that shifts responsibility. “I am responsible for everything,” says one codependent person. “You are responsible for everything,” says the other. Because neither of those statements is true, no progress is made. Codependency is like a tug of war, two people waste time and energy pulling against one another and getting nowhere. It isn’t going to be enough to stop pulling. Its okay to put the rope down and walk away.

Virtue/Vice Two: It is unkind to distance myself from people who hurt me. Christ commanded me to love everyone which means I need to put my mental health at risk rather than set healthy boundaries. This is a classic codependent virtue/vice. Keeping toxic relationships and people in your life is not healthy. Proper self care requires you to keep yourself safe from harm. Sacrificing your safety to enable someone’s toxic behavior is not a virtue, its a codependent vice.

Virtue/Vice Three: Doing family cut-offs is cruel. Family relationships need to be preserved no matter how detrimental they are to your mental health. For many years I have kept family relationships in my life that have hurt my recovery. Some family members have repeatedly reinforced toxic narratives, minimized abusive behavior, and blamed victims. Because I believed in the sanctity of eternal families, I kept trying to change toxic family members.

The truth is, eternal families are healthy families. Each individual is accountable for their own behavior within the family system. Not every individual has equal power within the family system. The parents have the bulk of the power and the responsibility for the overall health of the system. Children within the system, even adult children, have little power to change the system. Eventually healthy adult children will outgrow an unhealthy family system. That’s not cruelty, that’s life. If you want an eternal family, you need a healthy family. If your family isn’t healthy, it won’t last anyway.

Habits of codependence are reinforced with practice. It takes two to tango in the dance of codependence and the steps are unconscious. I’ve had to surround myself with people who have healthy boundaries in order to begin to see my own codependent habits.

Unfortunately, that has restricted my circle of friends to a very small group. Churches sometimes teach codependence as a virtue. Women at church are especially proud of their codependence. It is the whited sepulchre of mental health sins. On the outside they are virtuous servants of mankind while inwardly they are seething with the sickly rot of resentment. From such stay far away!

When it comes to relationships, I’ve prioritized quality over quantity. I have also prioritized relationships I feel I have some power to influence. I’m not investing in relationships with people who are rigid, defensive, and self-righteous. The truth is, there are not a lot of mentally healthy people in this world. There are enough mentally healthy people, but you have to look for them. You might find them in unexpected places.

The holidays are a strange mix of emotions for me. Being in recovery isn’t easy, but I have enough faith to believe it will be worth it. My best to all of you who find yourselves in a complicated place this season. You aren’t alone. As I celebrate the birth of the Savior, my model of mental health and altruistic virtue, this month, I hope I can better emulate Him. I hope my words bring you light and hope and not despair.

The Axe and the Tree

October 27, 2021 Broken Handmaid of the Lord1 Comment

The axe forgets.  Only the tree remembers.
You had an ideal childhood.
We played games
We went on vacations
We loved you
Those things are all true

But you don’t remember
Feeling your throat in your mouth 
As each smash of your hand 
Reverberated through my body.
Afraid to run.
Afraid to breathe.
Seeing stars come into my eyes
Terror mixed with shame 
Dripping down.

You don’t remember the thrill of fear 
Travelling up my spine
When I heard the door open,
And I knew you were home.
The rush to hide.
To make myself small.
You were fear personified

And I ran from you.

Like a child runs from 
A monster in the closet.

You don’t remember
That desperate need to please
To be good enough
To earn your love
Like a famished beast
It consumed joy and peace of mind
In the womb
Before it could be felt.

Or maybe you do remember
But you want to forget
The memories of your own small self
You defend the ones who hurt you.
You side with them.
They still have the power
And you are still trying to earn their love.

The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.
Can the axe remember that it was once a tree?
Long ago before it became a brittle and dead thing 
Designed to destroy its children,
It was green, and it swayed in the wind,
As it flowed through the branches.
Can the axe remember?  

Let’s write a different story. 
Let’s change the ending.
The powerful can remember
The pain of their choices
On those they forget.  
Let’s give the future fertilizer, 
And put the axe in the shed.
A timeout for a while. 

Let's dig a hole in the Earth
And in that soft soil,
We can grow some seedlings.
And they won’t fear the axe.
And they won’t remember
What they don’t have to forget.

The axe can remember 
And the tree can forget.

Bad Art

October 13, 2021 Broken Handmaid of the Lord2 Comments

Making some bad art today,
As seems to be my artist way,
To see the ugly broken me
And learn to love the flaws I see.

There is no other way I guess,
To silence the critic in my chest,
To bring the broken to the page
And release my inner sage

I find the beauty in growing things
In perfect hope that time will bring,
The beauty that I hope to find
Reminds me that I’m blind

To beauty He wants me to see,
The ugly and the broken me.
And find my artist way,
Making some bad art today

Empty Chairs

September 30, 2021 Broken Handmaid of the LordLeave a comment

Cold and hard
Silent and still
My heart raging
My throat bursting
My shoulders constricting.

“YOU DID THIS!”
The echoes reverberate
Off the empty chairs
They stand accused
With no defense

“YOU DID THIS!”
The sound blossoms
Across the generations
Like the ripples of a fetid pool
A pool they made
And I had to live in.

“YOU DID THIS!”
And there was nothing I could do
To help you
To protect myself
Powerless, alone, silent, still.

“YOU DID THIS!”
Tears stick in unfocused eyes
As blood drips down my face
At pain unfelt
At justice denied.

“YOU DID THIS!”
And I paid the price
For your mistake
The scapegoat
The sacrificial lamb
Silent submission

“YOU DID THIS!”
But I won’t become you.
They won’t atone for our sins.
I won’t curse the future
To justify the past.

“YOU DID THIS!”
And it isn’t my fault.
I can walk away
From the darkness
Into a rebirth
A new beginning

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

September 15, 2021September 15, 2021 Broken Handmaid of the LordLeave a comment

One of the biggest reasons I started blogging was because I wanted to learn to accept my mental health condition. I had been hiding it for so long behind a mask of normalcy that I had split myself into two people. One version of myself did her best to seem normal, embraced the values of perfection I had been conditioned to persevere toward, and tried not to get in the way of others around me. The other version of myself understood that the world around me and the value system I had been conditioned to accept was fundamentally flawed; that life was messy and hard and full of complex realities. This second version of myself kept wanting to assert herself and push the other, more compliant version, aside. These two sides of me seemed to always be in conflict. On the outside, I was a good Mormon mom who cared for her children, went to church every week, didn’t cause problems, and did what she had been taught. On the inside, I was full of doubts, fears, and building resentment.

This blog was a way for me to give voice to my hidden version of myself; the self that is broken and needs the Savior. The blog became a place I could be proud of my suffering and rejoice in the ways it leads me back to Him who is Mighty to Save. Why then have I struggled these past months to post?

My mental health recovery path has been full of difficulties, but the greatest one has been acceptance. Each time I take my medication, each time I can’t get out of bed, each time I finish another counseling session, each time I fall short, I remember my broken. It is so hard to see the beauty in it! I wish I could be whole and healthy and normal. I wish I wasn’t faced with the reality of my broken mind every day, but that is the life I’ve been given.

There is also so much beauty. I went to the STEM Academy meet the designer night last night. My second son started high school this year. He proudly led us to his various classes and introduced us to his teachers. He’s an excellent student with exceptional teachers who will help him achieve his potential. He’s taking his first AP class, so he will already start earning college credits. His older brother is in the top band as a Junior and is also college bound. My third son is thriving in his STEM Academy. My youngest loves kindergarten. In spite of my failings and flaws, my boys are growing and learning and off to a good start in life.

My second son with his chemistry teacher.

No one has a perfect life. We all struggle mentally and emotionally. Death, disappointment, illness, and accident visit everyone. It’s messy and hard and unfair and complicated; but every life is known to God. He suspends his judgment until the end of our lives. In the meantime, he asks only one thing of us; that we be honest with ourselves and others; that we confess and forsake our sins and follow the Savior. Why is that so hard for me?

Why am I so tempted to live a lie? Why am I so determined to put on a mask of conformity to please other people instead of an authentic image that pleases God? Why am I afraid to post on my blog? Why am I afraid of the judgement of those who don’t yet understand? We are broken! Not just me. We are all broken. That makes us all equals. I need not cower in shame.

Yet shame is what I feel and I can’t make the shame go away. And so I wander. I’ve left churches and temples made with hands and return to Eden; to the garden. I feel a pull to plants, animals, water, and soil right now. The last two months have been intense. Lots of joy, lots of sadness, lots of change. Bombs, pandemic, deaths, injustice, man’s inhumanity to man……it takes its toll. Every day I’m reminded that this world isn’t safe. The world is not a safe place.

We have a butterfly garden we started four years ago. The first year, we couldn’t keep enough milkweed in the garden! The monarchs laid so many eggs, I could hardly keep up. We released something like 32 monarchs that summer. Every day we would release the butterflies to fly away to Mexico for the winter. It was so amazing. For the past three years, we have grown milkweed and it has had nothing but aphids. This summer as the months passed, I thought that this year again, the monarchs would miss us. I was wrong.

We started getting eggs the second week of August. Lots of them. We also found little caterpillars everywhere. We scooped them up and put them in our crates and enclosures. We didn’t have enough. We bought more crates. There were more caterpillars. We gave some to friends. We drove along the freeway to find milkweed growing in the wild because we were running low in the garden. Twice a day we would clean out the cages and check on our babies. We had over fifty!

The Monarch caterpillar lives encased in a chrysalis for fourteen days before emerging as an adult butterfly. They are motionless and still as though dead, but they are very much alive and busy reforming themselves in preparation for life as a new creature.

Once we brought in a leaf that had predatory eggs on it that we didn’t see. A caterpillar ate the eggs and got sick. It split open to reveal the larvae that had killed it. Even with all our precautions, our caterpillars were not safe. We started washing every leaf before putting it in a crate. We felt relief every time a caterpillar would make its silk button and “J hang” because that meant one less caterpillar would be eating and pooping. The chrysalids began piling up.

Occasionally we would lose a caterpillar to “the black death” which is assumed to be some kind of bacterial infection. We would remind ourselves that of all the monarch eggs that are laid each year only about five percent survive to adulthood. Our efforts were dramatically improving the odds of success for our little friends.

The day we had our first butterfly eclose, or emerge, from chrysalis was magical. It is a miraculous thing to behold. The chrysalis begins to darken. There are no signs of life, and black is usually synonymous with death. If you look carefully, you can see the muted orange of the wings concealed behind the membrane, but even knowing this is normal, it looks eerie. Then the chrysalis splits and the animal within unfolds. At first it looks misshapen and wrinkled, but within ten minutes, the enormous wings flatten out and the transformation is complete.

*_{We released about fifty monarch butterflies this season. This experience has taught me so much about God as a force of transformation and restoration. He is a God of miracles.}*

The second day of school after dropping Austin off for Kindergarten, I took pictures and videos of these animals as they made this miraculous transformation. I don’t believe that this experience has happened by accident. I know that God sent the butterflies. I know that he knew that I needed them. He knew. He cared. He sent his winged messengers. The world isn’t safe! The caterpillars know that. The butterflies know that. The Afganis know that. The marines who died in the bombing knew that. Their families know that. There is a 100% chance that each one of us will die. Eventually this world will take our remains back into itself and we will decay and crumble into nothing. That is our fate. And yet, today we live. Today He loves us. Today He sent His butterflies to me. He also sent me a dream.

I dreamed I was witnessing a wartorn group of refugees leaving their homes and traveling together in families. But instead of people, they were monarch caterpillars. There were large ones, presumably parents, and there were small ones that clung to the backs of the larger ones. What did this dream mean? I feel that the caterpillars were Afgan refugees. The dream made them into caterpillars because to me, the monarch caterpillar is full of beauty and potential. God sees the refugees as full of beauty and potential too. The world won’t understand. They will see the mess and the work of caring for them; the protection they will need and the space they will require. God sees those things, but also the beauty that comes when his miracle transforms them.

God works his will in large and small ways. He sees the refugee and he knows the beggar in his need. He never will forget his people and his hand will never be stayed. His majesty will transform the Earth and the inhabitants will rejoice. I will live each day and pray that I can be the person he wants me to be. I will serve where he calls me to serve. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

_{Each butterfly is so extraordinary in the artistry and detail. Like the butterfly, we are exactly as God designed us to be, even in our broken and fallen state. The monarch has to be reborn five times in it’s life cycle. It breaks free of it’s skin and is reborn into a new larger form. Growth happens when we leave our past life behind and embrace change and renewal.}

I am broken and blessed. I can live authentically and honestly, embracing the redeemed person I am, unfettered by the sins of the past. I am broken, just as those who came before we were broken, but the present brings opportunities for renewal and rebirth. Our God is a God of transformations and redemptions, so I rejoice in my broken and I rejoice that my sins have brought me to Christ who heals me; not in the way I want to be healed, but in his wisdom he leaves the scars. I rejoice in my scars and refuse to hide them. They make me His and I rejoice that I am His. Fearfully and wonderfully made.