Five Minute Friday: Real

It’s that time of the week again, when we let our words fly and take shape for the fun of it. 

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking

2. Link back to The Gypsy Mama and invite others to join in.

3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:

::

Real…

God never place us in any position in which we can not grow. We may fancy that He does. We may fear we are so impeded by fretting, petty cares that we are gaining nothing; but when we are not sending any branches upward, we may be sending roots downward. Perhaps in the time of our humiliation, when everything seems a failure, we are making the best kind of progress.- Elizabeth Prentiss 

Sometimes I feel stuck. The days seem to repeat endlessly and each trial continues and each step feels as though I am retracing a path with tracks from my drifting heart . Sometimes I find myself in familiar surroundings and I wonder at how I have allowed myself to come back here. To this place that I thought I had moved beyond.

We talk of getting real. Of letting each other lean in close and see us as we are, the no makeup greasy ponytail girl staring into a full closet of clothes that no longer fit and deciding it’s not worth going out today.

The weight watchers name tag, Hello My Name is Alia sticker you found on the back of your jeans when you undressed at night and you realize you ran all of your errands since your meeting that morning with it stuck to your butt. And that one of those errands was buying ice cream and cake mix because you weighed in and the scale was mocking your hard work and you give up so easily.

Your toddler saying “Put me down you idiot,” at a homeschool ceremony while he struggles to get free of your grasp and you know he learned that word from you and your road rage. And you wonder how these kids of yours will ever turn out alright when they copy you so readily. And the worst parts always seem to come out.

And you feel like a failure. Again.

Some days you  feel the draw of depression pulling you down. The invitation to stop caring. To stop trying and just close your eyes and your bed is calling you, it is pleading for you to stay. It would be so much easier. And you find yourself there again. In this place you’ve moved beyond and you know you don’t want to stay here. You know that this is where  your heart goes to die. To be alone.

You want to be real but you also want to be loved. And sometimes you don’t feel the real is lovable. Sometimes the real is messy and pitiful or weak and broken.

Sometimes your real feels whiny and complaining and you know you should choose joy but what comes out sounds fake and syrupy and you don’t want to be that girl. The one who never seems real, with the platitudes and life lessons wrapped up neatly. The one who never lets the messy bits show.

So you choose to keep silent and alone and settle into this familiar place. Or you may choose to tell it all. To let the messy bits show and hope for the best, to set out on the path even if you’re not sure where you’ll end up.

Sometimes it is enough to say that I am a failing in these areas.  And that God is at work. And that is good enough. The best, really. God knows our real, our ruts in the road from life’s ordeals, why would we try to hide them from the ones He’s put in our lives to help us find the way back? Our friends.

To all of my friends who cover my messy parts and still love me, I’m so blessed by each of you.

My Struggle with Depression: Pain in the fog

My kids love to play Lego. I join them. We build other worlds in our imaginations. And I sit on the floor in front of their Lego tables criss-cross apple sauce as the kids say. My body can only take sitting on the floor for so long until my feet fall asleep. Completely numb. And when the Lego blocks are arranged and my life summons me to cook dinner, answer emails, or plan lessons; I  emerge from our kingdom, numb and tingling. I have to stand still first as the needles prick my feet and the tingling bubbles through  my nerves. I can’t find stable footing until I can feel completely.  I stand wiggling a toe at a time, before I can begin to walk.

This has been my experience when I surface from the blinding white. When the world starts to come into focus, and I begin to make out shapes in the hazy light.

After over a year of postpartum depression ,which had remained undiagnosed, I became pregnant. This pregnancy was brutal from the very beginning. I spent the first 14 weeks clinging to the toilet bowl, retching. Exhaustion claimed me and I sunk even further. I expelled everything that crossed my lips.  And then, it seemed to lift. I started to feel better physically and the nausea receded.

The jelly was warm and gooey as it spread over my belly. Josh sat in the corner of the room holding Judah. Our first meeting with our new baby.  The ultrasound wand danced over my skin and the doctor frowned. My head angled to see the grainy screen. The faint outline of a baby, my baby, floating still and silent. And then these words, ” At 16 weeks, we should see fetal activity and a definite heartbeat. I’m so sorry, but I don’t see any signs of life. It appears that the baby has passed.”

 The glare of the fluorescent lights above pierced deep and as I squeezed my eyes shut tight to block it all, my  lashes failing at  holding  back the flood of tears cascading down my cheeks.

Pain shot through me. Vibrating and jarring me awake, like the sudden blast of a shrieking alarm clock. 

And there would be more pain. Drawn out long. Operating rooms and bleeding, infection and fear. Anger at the why me? Sorrow and weeping. Loss. 

morning light

flickr photo by freewine

The world became hazy. I was no longer blinded by the white.  I could see the faint silhouette of my former soul but I was helpless to grasp her.  My doctor looked deep into my eyes and saw the despair. He scribbled out an introduction to an ally that would help me in this battle on his white doctors pad. A little white pill that would help me to find my way back. The scales were beginning to fall from my eyes and new light was coming in. Not harsh or blinding, but soft like the dawning of a fresh new morning.

And it was painful. The pins and needles shocking me as I began to move parts that had been stagnant for too long. The adjustment to all sensation coming back. The wiggling of toes and the feeling creeping in.  The ability to see where I had been and to begin to talk about it. To connect to those around me and find healing in my story. A story whose final chapter is yet to be written. But  when the tingling pain subsided, and I was finally able to move again, I could take my first step. 

There have been lots of steps since that time and the struggle didn’t end there but I am still walking and I feel it all. The good and the bad.  The first time I heard this song, I cried like a little baby. It resonated with me that God is doing things in the midst of our aching and suffering, a thousand things we may never know. And maybe, our story will make someone else feel a little less alone in it all.

 

As always, I’d love to hear you thoughts.  Do you ever ask, “Why me God, why this?”  What do you tell yourself in the pain? Have you ever had a jolt that woke you from a life lived on autopilot? Has God turned your mourning into joy? If so, how?

My Struggle with Depression: When depression is white

I’ve already shared with you how I was to be the perfect mom with the perfect child, and we all know that turned into an epic fail. One of the catalysts to my realization that I wasn’t enough, would never be enough, and actually needed to learn to ask for help was my ongoing struggle with depression. It has been both a brutal master and an eye-opening, soul cleansing journey.

Judah was determined from birth to match my determination for perfection with his own will. I was dead set on natural child-birth. I had taken Bradley classes, learned the stages of labor, and written out my birth plan to be delivered to my doctor. The plan got thrown off but not completely derailed in my 37th week when my blood pressure skyrocketed and I was diagnosed with severe preeclampsia. But I still determined to do it natural. After 16 hours of induced pitocin labor, and the encouraging comment from one of the labor nurses that they were lowering my pitocin even though I was only at 3cm because my uterus might rupture from the strength of the contractions, I relented. I took a shot that did nothing for the pain but made me extremely loopy and nauseous. Yay me! I was then  thwarted 27 hours later  by an emergency c-section.

Postpartum Depression at delivery

photo credit by koadmunkek

One of the parenting books I read in my quest for perfect mothering was Babywise. Other moms swore by it and I was determined to do it right from the get go. I started sleep training my newborn in the hospital. Realize folks that I had to have an emergency C-section at 37 weeks after 27 hours of excruciating pitocin induced labor. I was exhausted. The epidural had left me so numb that I could not sit up without assistance. I tried to breastfeed but the nurse had to prop Judah up and he refused to latch on.

I felt powerless and scared. I did what any determined, immature new mom with my control freak personality would do. I enforced order to the situation. I laid him swaddled in that sterile plastic bassinet and decided to wait until he woke to start him on his nursing schedule. That’s right folks, stay with me. I was going to put him on a nursing schedule. Brilliant.

I had read that it was healthier for them to nurse at regular intervals, never to fall asleep at the breast: lest they pick up bad habits and never learn to self soothe.

In retrospect, I think my need for approval and to be seen as a good mother, as well as my own pride severely clouded my judgement. If I could go back I’d take that Babywise book and slap myself with it before tossing it out with Judah’s poopy diapers. Then I’d settle that little newborn bundle of goodness into the hollow spot under my neck and let him nuzzle himself to sleep. But I didn’t know then what I know now.

New Parents

Thus began my first year with Judah that would include failure for my milk to come in for almost two weeks, an infection from the c-section, mastitis, jaundice, too many sleepless nights to count because I wouldn’t let him fall asleep nursing, severe postpartum depression that would blind me to the joy that new mothering could bring and left me lost and isolated. I had closed myself off to others, too fatigued and overwhelmed to muster the energy it would take to connect.

This depression was white. Often when I read about depression, it is a deep, painful, dark place. A burrowing into oneself. But this was something else entirely and it made it even harder to recognize. This depression was sterile, white, blinding. Like a cold winter of the soul. It didn’t hurt so much as make me numb. I walked around in a stupor. Life was bland, tasteless, joyless.

fluorescent light

photo credit by pellesten

 I suppose I functioned to a degree, after all, I was maniacal about sleep training, nursing on a schedule, and meeting Judah’s basic needs. I think I even hung out with friends occasionally and had play dates, so long as they didn’t interfere with our schedule. I was going through the motions as best I could.

What I lacked was connection. This depression was so white, its glare penetrated deep and washed out any feeling. I simply was. I existed but did not thrive. I lived through Judah’s first year in this zombie-state.

The pain isn’t always in the depths of the depression. In the thick of it, I didn’t even realize how numb I had become. I didn’t long to feel anything because I didn’t long to feel at all. How does a leper who has lost all feeling know that their damaged nerves are no longer sensitive? It is often when the infection sets in and is visible to everyone.  

The pain comes later, as the white dims and everything is cast in a hazy glow, and things start to come into focus. It is in that place that the pain begins. 

 Next post: My Struggle with Depression: Pain in the fog

 Maybe you can relate. Maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about and if you don’t, I say great, but chances are that someone close to you, someone you care about will experience some form of depression in their lives. It’s often misunderstood, especially in the church, where the joy of the Lord is supposed to be our strength. Are only the weak in faith depressed? What of Charles Spurgeon , who struggled with devastating depression for most of his life? How do we react when positive thinking is supposed to lift us miraculously from any mire we stumble in? How do we live and walk in faith while addressing issues like depression?

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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