silence is golden

i had lunch with a new friend on wednesday afternoon. it was a “business lunch.” i needed to prepare to speak in her class by finding out more of what she expected from me. i left lunch (over three hours later) nearly as clueless about the class as when i had arrived; however, i knew the heart of the professor which gave me insight into the class.

speaking to her class was such a privilege

aside: i am writing this on a plane. i have no idea why i am not capitalizing things, but it feels good and somewhat rebellious to do so. i think i have only done this “style” in one other post, and that was because i was in a hurry and feeling scattered. i am not scattered today, so rebellion is the only answer.

sometimes we need a little rebellion in our lives

after the lunch on wednesday and speaking in my new friend’s class, she sent me a thank you email and commented about my blog (to be honest, i sent the link…it’s easier than explaining what i have thought since 2010).

but she commented about it as an accomplishment. this blog. this blog that has sat dormant for nearly two years. the last published post was actually written by my daughter as she tried to deal with a diagnosis that we have since found out was wrong but she has a different (better? worse?) diagnosis instead.

and then the blog went silent

the details of the past two years are numerous and complicated. there is plenty of good (see my facebook world for that), but there is also lots of hard. health conditions, changes in living arrangements (airstream!), expanding a school program, children becoming adults and about to graduate (didn’t I just write about high school graduation?), and those things that happen that just cannot be blogged.

sounds mysterious, right?

oh, you have them too. family, finances, and fun are all recipes for disaster while being avenues for great joy. sometimes, it is just too hard to explain things. sometimes, it is just too hard to write what you think, feel, and experience.

and silence becomes a friend

i did not stop thinking for the past two years. my mind did not slow down for the past two years. instead, i filed away the thoughts that have bounced in my head and have taken hold in my heart so that i could pull them back out when the time was right.  and i started a podcast for my school which has been life giving, creative, and fun.

too much of the past two years is not my story alone. when my story intersects with the stories of others, i have to be sensitive about how i write about them. i might be happy as a clam to share my dirty laundry, but i should not take the liberty to share yours, his, or hers. this time has been reflective for me.

what is my story?

i have a story to tell, but it mostly is a story of some wonderful people who have made me who i am today. the comment from a new friend about my blog shook me a bit. i have been playing around with a couple of book ideas. one will essentially write itself. the other will tear me apart and put me back together (because we should all have that done  at least three or four times in our lifetime).

a clearer story

one of the cool things that has come from these two years of silence on the blog has been some clarity. i used to write anything that came to mind and hit publish. then i wrote nothing and published nothing. i think that i should write more and publish some. i think i should care about what i care about (and what God cares about…) and care less about what anyone else wants from me.

what is your story?

do you know how to tell your story? do you think that no one wants to hear your story? i LUV (yes, I am on a Southwest Airlines flight!) hearing other people’s stories! you all are so fascinating! the question is this: how can your story and my story be told? in telling our stories, we find the common themes in our lives and can come together to support each other.

talk less – smile more…

our nation is divided because we are not listening to each other’s stories.  silence is golden sometimes. my listening to your story helps me to know you better. we need to find some silence in our hearts, some listening in our ears, and some quiet in our minds.

only then can we see that our stories are unique and similar and hard and wonderful.

 

 

Mental Health and the Art of Listening

Looking back in my last post, I realize that I was a bit frazzled as I wrote it.

Clue #1: I didn’t capitalize appropriately. Some bloggers do this for style. I was frazzled and writing fast.

Clue #2: I wrote the post in 23 minutes. Yes – from “begin new post” to “publish post” with “categories” and “tags” in between, only 23 minutes flew by.

Clue #3: The post has had more shares than any other post I have ever written. Frazzled, raw, and unfiltered posts grab readers right in the gut, and readers share.

I have had several private messages through Twitter, Favebook, and my email….I’m so glad it is helping people to articulate, share, listen and hope.

I am also really sad that the post even had to exist.

I currently have a lot on my plate. Those who know me recognize that I say this a lot. The truth is: this might be the fullest it has been in a while, and it’s going to stay full for a bit. As a good friend/mentor says, “It is what is it.” The days will be long and interesting, and we will get through them.

What I do not want to do in the midst of this busy time, though, is to lose my ability to listen.

I should pause here and share that I struggle to be a good listener. I tend to want to interrupt, fill in your sentence, and move on to the action part – usually where I fix whatever it is that happens to be wrong. However, I have been trying hard recently (and for the past decade!) to look others in the eyes, be still, and give space for them to explore in my presence rather than dragging them past themselves into a solution.

I have sat on the receiving end of this practice with friends, my counselor, and mentors.  This is where the work of improving mental health happens.  Mental health doesn’t improve because you give me your recipe for success.

Mental health improves because I feel heard.

How can we be better listeners?

1. Close our mouths as others talk. I’m not kidding. We need to get over ourselves and not want to get in a word.
2. Breathe deeply and look the other in the eyes. The calm that we present will help the other remain calm even when the situation may be very chaotic.
3. Do not fear silence – in fact, count to five or ten before talking when the other person pauses.
4. Ask open-ended questions that allow others to understand their issues better. An example of this happened over the weekend when a friend asked me to clarify a statement I had made. It was not for her understanding that she asked the question but rather as a way for me to see over the issue and past what bothered me.
5. Just listen. Just be there. If the other person sheds a few (or many) tears, honor those tears, let them flow, and don’t comfort to the point of stifling what might be a very healing or cathartic moment.

I share quite openly that I struggle with mental health issues.  the last post I wrote published less than three hours before I spoke to our church’s youth group about mental health and their faith.

I told them that there are adults willing to help them.  I told them that because I have experienced that truth over and over again in my life.

I have run into the person here or there who has not known how to listen. If it is a tough time for me, that is really, really hard.  When I’m in a more gracious place, I realize that I’m not always so good at this art of listening either.

It’s a new day. It’s a new week.  Football season is over, and the Broncos won (yay!).

As we start off this week, let’s try to practice listening more and taking less. We may learn more about others than we ever dreamed was possible.

 

mental health, youth group, north dakota, and me

it’s 4:38pm, and i should be in the shower.  in less than three hours, i will stand before a group of 7-12th grade students at our church and talk about mental health, faith, and how the two meet. in my last minute preparations, i ran across a statistic that took my breath away.

not in a good way

according to HOPE for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the leading cause of death for ages 15-24 in north dakota.

what?

here i sit…with that information…breathe, stacy, breathe…

do i tell the kids that?

i think i have to tell them.

the kids who sit in front of me tonight are in that age group. they need to know that they do not have to kill themselves. they need to know that they can take each other seriously. they need to know that it isn’t a game or something that they should do because someone else did it. they need to know that they are important today and will be important tomorrow.

they need to know that there is help.

it seems odd that north dakota would have this issue, right? or maybe not.  people who live in north dakota are strong, hard-working, and private. when we stand behind a mask that we put on to keep that image, we often hurt ourselves. and others.

fear of being found out keeps us from saying anything to anyone. pull yourself up and keep on going. if anyone knew what went on inside my head, what would they think?

and there isn’t exactly a plethora of help here.  the thing is, though, that there is probably more help than people realize.

there are big churches here. there is good medical care here. it’s here – walk through the doors, open your mouths, and say the words that will get you some help.

that sounds hard.

and it is.

it isn’t easy for me hit “publish” on posts that reveal to the world that i struggle with energy shifts that cause mood shifts that keep me from wanting to say “help.” but i do it.

i do not do it so that you can look at me and feel sorry for me. i do it so that you can look inside yourself and say, “i can do it too. i can ask for help.”

i do it so that you can look at the person next to you in church and be ready when they say, “can you pray for me? i’m struggling with some feelings, and they scare me.”

i do it so that we stop whispering and wondering and wasting our lives caring about the wrong things.

mental illness is an illness. we only get better when we do all of the things that an illness requires. sometimes illness requires help, intervention, and care.

and that is what i’m going to the kids tonight.

God cares enough about you for you to get help to take care of you. the scary things inside of your head will be less scary when you ask for help, get help, and look to God for truth.  the point is to understand how to manage your emotions and energies so that you can live.

it doesn’t matter where we live, this is an issue. when we stop making it such a big deal to struggle and instead make it a big deal to manage, care, and assist, we will change the tide.

suicide should not be the leading cause of any age group anywhere.

reach out, hold a hand, and speak truth into each others’ lives.

today.

now.

Psalm 46:1 – God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

ps: if you know someone who took his or her life, it’s not your fault.  don’t beat yourself up about it. God doesn’t want you to hold onto that guilt.

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tapping, rocking, and laughing

I smelled him as soon as he passed me on the way to finding a seat on our flight from Spokane to Denver.  It was the combination of the smells that struck me (not just alcohol, not just cigarettes, and not just something sweet that could have been marijuana). It seemed unnecessary for all of the smells to be tied up in one person at one time.

As soon as he sat down one row behind me in the opposite aisle seat, he started to move.

First, it was his legs and feet. Wiggle, wiggle, jiggle, jiggle.  Nervous energy that seemed to have no end.  It started with toes, then moved to his knees, and finally both of his legs were working up a storm.

Next, it was his fingers. Tap….tap…tap, tap, tap.  A rhythm that only he could hear. One that definitely needed to get out of him.  More energy.  Tap…tap…tap…tap, tap, tap…tap, tap…tap.  Try it – each ellipses set is a pause.  It started with one finger, then moved to his whole hand drumming, and ended with both hands -sometimes alternating while at other times combining in rhythm.

Finally, it was his whole body in motion. He rocked, he swayed, and his head turned and bobbed. He seemed to be at his own wedding dance with really loud rhythms that only the exceptionally carefree (or intoxicated, in my experience) enjoy.  The seat could not contain him.

This was all before take off.

A friend of his sat next to him a few minutes later, and he calmed a bit.  However, the rhythms returned.

“Are you high?” his friend asked.  No response.

“Dude, seriously, are you high? Drunk? Both?” his friend asked again. No response.

The movements continued, and the airplane physically moved with him.

We need to pause here for a moment.  This flight, for me, was a return from a serene – almost retreat type – weekend.  I had enjoyed calm, had learned to drink tea, and had slept well.  Having the world around me forced into movement by a young man kind of shocked my system.

When the plane reached cruising altitude, I had figured out how to ignore the constant rhythm behind me.  Somehow the next hour and a half went by without my mind engaging in the potential anger I could have for the young man’s dance party behind me.

As we started to land, the movements intensified.  And then the laughter started.

I had disengaged to this point, but I could not help but eavesdrop. Nonsense, total nonsense, poured from the two young men’s mouths.  This was followed by an amount of laughter that I rarely have witnessed.

“We are so high,” the friend said, and they both broke out in floods of laughter.

I had clearly missed something during the flight.

By the time we landed, the tapping, rocking, and laughter made it impossible to ignore them.  As we all stood awkwardly waiting for the cabin doors to open, I glanced at these two men.  Clearly, they knew each other well, and this was not their first flight in such a state.  They thought they were extremely funny while at the same time it was clear that they knew they were only funny to themselves.

The good news, for the dance party young man, was that his body had calmed.  Perhaps flying caused anxiety for him.  It is quite common.  Perhaps he had too many chemicals at war within him combined with the movement of flying.  Whatever it was, it stopped when he stood up. I was thankful that he had not vomited at some point during the flight.

As I walked off the plane, stating the required “thank you” to the flight attendants as I did, I thought about how many of us stifle the movement we feel inside of us in order to conform to the social norm.  This man had no conforming in him, and it seemed to free him enough to laugh…and laugh…and laugh.  Lucky man, really.

While the social setting does always permit this sort of freedom, I think we sometimes create an additional layer of reserve.  When I do that, and then you do that, we lose our ability to laugh – or cry – or even engage with emotion at all.  A bunch of stiflers with no access to emotions makes for a tough society, and we all suffer when this happens.

This semester, rather than teaching a class at UMary, I am taking an online class from Brené Brown about vulnerability and being authentic. One of my take-aways so far has been that we do not set each other up for engaging in real conversation with one another.

When we are real with one another, we learn to ask much more authentic questions with the intention of  creating a safe space for the other to respond and expand on that response without any personal agenda (including that the interaction be quick) for that conversation.

This young man was real – a bit too real perhaps? – and part of me envied him for being able to let out all of that energy and laughter with 135+ other strangers around him.

As January comes to a close, I want to encourage us all to identify one place where we need to show up, be present, and provide that space for others to be present.  We cannot change and move airplanes overnight, but one small step in the right direction can happen.

Some Days I Walk Into the Counseling Office and…

…. I look like I just got out of bed. My hair is in a ponytail with those crazy sprigs making that fuzzy weird look that happens when I haven’t had time to shower. I’m wearing sweatpants – not the yoga pants that are almost acceptable at work now – the full on sweatpants that even the most uncool won’t wear outside of their house anymore. I’m wearing my most comfortable sweatshirt. It is the one that I’ve had for a long time, that a friend gave to me, and that I’m pretty sure will stay with me until I die. Even though the ends of the sleeves are unraveling and breaking apart, I find comfort in the worn-out inside that makes me feel like me.

These are the days in the counseling office when we pick apart the scariest parts of my brain. The scary is mostly caused by chemistry and impacts energy. The energy changes that come with the ups and downs of a bipolar brain can sometimes be a little overwhelming. Although I have some sense of seasonal impact, I really do not know when a change could happen.

Most people think that the scariest part of mental health are the low energy times.  In fact, for most people high energy times are much worse.  The brain races along faster than we can catch our thoughts. We open businesses, agree to too much, and talk super fast.  We might not even be able to listen to you because your words are not coming out fast enough for us. We interrupt, speak for you, and often misunderstand what you really meant.

Another common misconception is that low energy and sadness go hand in hand.  This is simply not true.  While they can co-exist, they are two separate entities.  Depression/low energy is not really a bad mood.  It is simply low energy.  Imagine influenza with the headache and fatigue.  That is low energy.  The DSM might have depression in the mood category, but I think it is wrong.  Sadness is a feeling, and that can happy in a high energy time or a low energy time. Feelings and energy are different.

I digress – back to the counseling office.

On other days, I show up looking like I may head to the beach. I’m wearing the shirt that makes me feel the most like me. This past summer I wore the same shirt to all of my counseling sessions. I bought it when I was on a trip to Rhode Island for a wedding in May. Somehow I had under-packed and needed more clothes. Having to go to the store and find a couple of shirts that would look OK in the various occasions that I had to attend is one of the worst things that I could need to do. On rare occasion, though, I find things in stores that scream me.

My favorite days are when I enter the counseling office and it might not be clear which is of us is the client and which is the counselor. I look like I’m ready to conquer the world.  I may be in those yoga pants or the black dress pants that I wear to to important meetings. This is when I think that I have all my crap together, and being in the counseling office might actually be a waste of both of our time.  But it isn’t.  These are the days that I get the most done and am able to identify how to keep my crap together once I leave the office.

Even though we have come along way in our society in regards to our attitudes about the counseling office, we still attach a stigma to those (like me) who spend several hours a year there.  More often than not, we do not want to say that we are going there, why we are there, or how long we have been there.

I have decided that, regardless of which of these Stacys walk into the counseling office, it is a good place to be.  My counselor is only concerned about me making good choices, she has nothing at stake in this, and she is trained to ask the hard questions that most of us would be afraid to even think.

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If you think you need a session or two with someone who can do that for you, I highly suggest that you seek someone today.  If you live in a little town without a counselor, contact Family Innovations in Minnesota. They have just added online counseling to their arsenal.

Mirror, Mirror – Embracing Our Fractured Selves

I love words.

I love how they look inside our heads, on pages of books, and even on screens of various devices.

I love how words form clouds of vibrations in the air as people give voice to them.  I love the sounds that they make, how they can put weight on our hearts, and how they can lift our spirits.  I love the tones that we give them, and I love the emphasis that we place on just the right words in sentences we say.

I love how words take my jumbled thoughts from my mind and make sense when I type them into a blog post.

What I love most about words is the pictures that they create in our minds with their various meanings and how those pictures become clearer as we understand the meanings of the words in different ways that impact our lives in meaningful ways.

The word embrace has become that for me recently.

According to Merriam-Webster.com, embrace has many meanings.

One use of the definitions tells us of a physical “hug” type experience.  This would seem to require at least two people who like each other enough to touch each other, to hold each other, and to be near each other for a few seconds or more.

Another sense of the word is that of acceptance in a wholehearted way. This is different than seeing reality as it is and being ok with it.  Instead, we “hug” reality in the same we would a friend whom we have not seen for a long time. We bring it into ourselves and realize that how it is will be a good way to move forward once we accept it.

These definitions of the word can mean so much more when we turn the concept onto ourselves.

When I look in the mirror sometimes, I do not have a clue who it is that I see. There are glimmers of a person who was as well as who is.  Who I am today is a sum of parts.  Some are negative while others are very positive. If I were honest, I would say that I most often feel compartmentalized into the various ages, stages, experiences, and feelings that combine to make me Stacy today.

Rarely – though more so as I age and become very conscious of this concept – do I feel whole.

While there is no running away from the sum of our parts, most of us have parts that we would like to shed.  We write stories in our heads about these parts – we think of it as memory, but is it?  I do not think so.  How I recall a situation and how you recall the same situation may be very different.  Where do we find the reality of it? We rarely do.

How scary is that?

The revisionist historian in me wants re-write my past so that I am victorious when I was not. When I am tempted to do this, I ignore the parts that make up my whole.  I desire to shed the poor decisions rather than look at them, learn from them, and grow because of them. Who I am today would be different if the path that brought me here changed.  When I attempt to change the past (impossible), I would risk changing who I am today.

I drove a lot last week.  Over 1200 miles of thinking time can be risky.  In this case, I think I found something. Somewhere in the last hundred miles, I found an image in my head that I cannot shake.

In my mind, the now-Stacy turned around and saw myself at an age that I would love to shed.  We all have them. We all probably have more than one of them. I certainly do.

I looked at her, and I realized that I am older, wiser, and stronger because of her.

Without her, I do not exist.

In my mind, I embraced her in all of the ways that the word can be used. I held onto her as you would a friend who is about to leave or who is about to fall apart. I apologized to her for wanting to get rid of her, for ignoring her, and for not seeing her strength. Perhaps most importantly, I accepted her into me as part of my whole self.  I allowed that me to be absorbed into the today me.

There are more little bits of me that need this type of embrace, and it probably is not a bad thing to take a moment each day to ask “myself” if there is a bit that is feeling rejected from me.  If rejection from others hurts, how much more does it hurt when we reject a bit of ourselves?

One of the synonyms that Merriam-Webster gives for embrace is cherish.

I love a good word definition search.  The thesaurus may be dying in some worlds, but it is alive and well in my world.  Give me a word, leave me alone to search down its likenesses, and I will find another way to see that word.  That is exactly what happened to me as I considered embrace in reference to myself and these parts that nag at me to see the world their way instead of as a combined vision of the whole of me.  In that search for what it really means to embrace those parts of me – to alleviate their stress of seeing the world their way – I found cherish.

All of the definitions I could find about cherish points to a very special way of seeing a person, place, or object.  When we cherish something, somewhere, or someone, we love and hold it so deeply that we can barely describe why. Words leave us, and emotions flood our senses.

As I stared into my eyes in the mirror yesterday afternoon, I asked myself if I could continue to have the compassion that I found over the weekend. Time will tell, but it is my intention to look at the parts and shower love, understanding, and acceptance on them.

 

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Ending #2 – for those who want to hear about how God fits in to this in my mind…..

One of the reasons that I bother to look at the bits and pieces of myself is because I trust the truth that these are words that God uses to see me. It is unfortunate that love is not the word that many people associate with God, but God is the ultimate lover of humanity. The now-Stacy trusts, knows, and hopes that God embraces and cherishes us regardless of the redemption and restoration that we need.

It is because of His eyes that we can embrace and cherish those bits and pieces of ourselves. It is God’s presence with us through it all that makes our shaky path straight – not because of who we were or are but because of what He did and does on our behalf.

He takes our bits and pieces and makes them whole again.

 

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I have written about “parts of me” before, so I thought I would share with you the links to a few of those posts:

A Little Thing Means a Lot

I Like to Run…Away

A Confession: I Prefer Not to be a Bother

Image credit: http://oathkeepers.org/oktester/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/broken-mirror.png

 

 

 

fog, mental illness, and getting through

As I left town before the sun rose in the morning, dense fog rolled in around me.  The farther from town I drove, the thicker the fog became.  As I listened to the radio, the DJ shared, “A fog warning has been issued for most of the I94 area.”  Great.  If he was right, I had another 200 miles of fog in front of me.

And that is exactly what happened.

As predicted, the fog crept around me off and on for the next few hours.

At times, I could only see only the white lines in the center of the road because of how dense it was.

At other times, the fog cleared allowing me see see farther and enjoy the break.

I mention often in writings on this blog that I struggle with bipolar tendencies. In the days following the fog drive, I have been thinking about how fog is a great metaphor for mental illness and the low energy times that I experience. I hope this resonates with many readers.

Fog is unpredictable.

As I drove my 200 miles in and out of fog, I was surprised at how suddenly I could be surrounded by fog and at how quickly it disappeared.  It would come and go suddenly at times but then be creeping at other times. While my mental health low times sometimes can be charted in some kind of rhythm, they are often unpredictable.  I struggle to know if I am feeling ill or having a low time as they often can feel similarly.

Fog slows down our minds.

Because of the strain to see through the density of the fog around us, we need to put other things on hold.  At times, we need to turn off the radio and concentrate on driving.  This is true with our mental health as well.  When our minds get stuck in the fog – or when the fog creeps in on us – we struggle to see beyond the fog. We may need to clear out the noise in our minds and around us.  Our family and friends may not understand this, and we need to be careful only to do this as needed rather than as a way to isolate from the world.

We need to follow the white line.

When we are in a mental fog, we need to rely on routine and follow what we can see.  Just like the white line in the center of the road, we need to know what to follow to keep us safe when our minds are foggy. This is why routine when we are in a “good zone” is so important. Establishing routine helps us to do safe things when we are in a foggy patch.  Exercise, taking medications, sleeping well, and eating well keep us safe through the foggy periods.

We need to follow only safe drivers.

Drivers from Florida, Alaska, Nevada, and Montana joined me on the road in the fog.  While they may know their own type of driving obstacles, North Dakota weather has its unique challenges.  These drivers created challenges for me as they drove too fast in several of the portions of fog. In our non-metaphorical lives, others around us struggle to understand that we are in a mental fog.  They try to speed up, drag us with them, and can lead us into a crash by distracting us.

We do not need to see beyond the fog.

The DJ told me that the fog would lift.  I desperately wanted to see beyond the fog, but that was just not what was meant to be. I  had to wait out the fog, move through it, and find moments of gratitude while I was in in it. While fogs in our minds do not have a DJ to tell us when the fog will lift, we know that it will. Experience reminds me of this. Some people keep a calendar to remind them of when the fog lifts or returns. If the mental fog does not lift for more than a couple of weeks, it is time to take ourselves to a fog doctor (medical or therapeutic) and get some help.  When we drive, sometimes the fog gets really bad, and we have to pull over.  If we cannot see past the fog, we need to wait it out or get some help.

We need to stay safe in the fog.

As we go in and out of fog, our eyes and brains adjust.  Hopefully, they do this fast enough for us to be able to remain safe, but there are times that we have some pretty close calls. As we become experienced drivers, we learn about safe driving in snow storms, fog, and heavy rains.  Sometimes the highway department determines whether or not we can drive in the weather. In our mental health world, we need to create a web of people who can help us be safe. While it can be hard to hear someone (or a group of someones) tell us that it is time to get some help, we may need to listen to them as they keep us safe.  Spending too much time in a fog can jeopardize our safety.

How do you deal with the fog in your life?

I have been writing this blog in earnest since August of 2011.  As I have written about various topics, I find myself coming back to the topic of mental illness a lot. I realize that it is hard for many to share about this side of their lives. As a friend and I talked over this past weekend, the word stigma and the concept of safe people were part of the conversation.

I know that mental illness is hard to understand. It is complex, and we often do not know how to be the “white line” for others.  For those who suffer from the fog, know that there is lots of help out there – some of that help might even be closer than you think.  For those who support those who suffer from the fog, know that you are not alone in the supporting.

We cannot control the fog in our head any more than we can control the weather. However, we can learn to cope with it so that we can get through it safely.

And no matter how temporarily, the fog will lift, and we will see the sun.

A Little Thing Means a Lot

I stayed in bed far too long yesterday morning. Excitement and fear paralyzed me as I looked forward to the lunch appointment I had on the University of Mary campus with someone who had intervened in one very specific moment in my life over 20 years ago.

When I was a freshman at Concordia College, my bipolar self was not diagnosed accurately.   The highs and lows of energy that I still experience manifested themselves in those days in a variety of ways such as chaotic eating, concentrated exercise schedules,  extended depressive episodes, odd sleep patterns, spurts of intense productivity,  and general silliness.  All of these things masked what truly bothers me – energy-based bipolar tendencies which a psychiatrist finally diagnosed correctly when I was 36 years old. During those college days, though, I spent a good amount of time “on the run” – something I still often feel tempted to do and have posted about in the past.

The church I attended during high school had a very active youth group. We went to camp, traveled on mission trips, and spent most Wednesday nights and weekends together.   Every Christmas and Easter, our group joined other groups from around North and South Dakota for retreats.  These were my good friends – the same friends that I found at camp. I married one of them, and I remain friends with most of the others to this day in some way or another (at the very least on Facebook).  I also had the opportunity to meet other adults from around the state who spoke into my life at various points throughout high school, college, and into my adult life.

Several weeks ago, I sat in a meeting with University of Mary Student Support Services staff members.  Each of my English 098 students has an advisor, and I wanted to share my thoughts, impressions, and concerns with the advisors as a group. I had emailed with many of them, but their supervisor and I thought it would be worthwhile for me to attend one of their meetings.  When we went around the table and introduced ourselves, one name…and the face…seemed oddly familiar.  I was completely caught off-guard but had to focus on my meeting.

After the meeting, I could not shake the impulse to contact her, so I did….by email…because that is the best way to find out information without exposing my soul to too much pain or rejection if I am wrong.

Ummm…were you, by chance, a youth leader from <<her church>> in the 90s?

I sat at my computer and waited for the reply. I refreshed my email several times, and then her response came – YES!  I shared a few more details about who I was “back then,” and her reply came back again…she remembered me!

The next day, we were at an event together.  When I saw her, I had mixed emotions about knowing that she knew that me…the me who left her dorm room in the middle of the night because the urge to run had overwhelmed her…the me who did not know how to deal with the thoughts that told her to run…the me who showed up in a driveway hundreds of miles away from college, slept in the car, and was found that way the next morning by the very woman standing in front of me…the me who this youth leader had encouraged to go back to school saying that I was fine.

“We should have lunch,” she said.

Yesterday, we had lunch.  Throughout the morning, though, all of the parts of me that feels and experiences joy, anxiety, and fear held my body in a paralyzing force.  The what ifs of how lunch could go raced through my mind and nearly kept me from going.  To be honest, I left the house later than I had planned, I took the long way to the university, and I thought I might just keep driving south to miss the lunch appointment altogether.  Eventually I put on my big girl pants, and I still arrived early.  Strange how that works!

All morning, I felt like “that me” again…young, frightened, and ready to run.  At the same time, I felt like the “this me” who is the dean of students of a new little online school in Minnesota, teaches classes at the University of Mary, is married to a pastor, and has two grown children attending Baylor University.  This paradox of us being able to feel two ages at once is something that I need to explore more in another post.

When we sat down, she asked me to tell her about me.  I was stunned and absolutely speechless.  I know – me! speechless??  I had no idea where to start.  There I was sitting in front of a woman who had found the eighteen year old me in her driveway after I had driven a few hundred miles and slept in my car…and she wanted to know about the “today” me – the forty year old pastor’s wife and mother of two freshmen in college.  It dawned on me that my own children are now the age of “the me” who ended up in her driveway that night.

As I told her about me, I told her the raw stuff without going into the icky details of any of it. We both have master’s degrees in education, work as guidance counselor types, and are familiar with the lingo, so it was easy to be sort of clinical about it all.

Before I knew it, lunch was over.  We parted ways as we each have jobs that need us.  We waved goodbye in that way that we do when we know the person is in the same town or on the same college campus most days.  The mood was light, and it became clear to me that all of my anxiety was silly.

Next week, I will drop off a book to the student success center where she works.  The book is a compilation of essays written by my students. The title is Unexpected Giants and is a tribute to those who have carried my students (and me) on their shoulders so that we could see futures that we could not have seen alone.

When I  mentioned the incident to her (as a point of reference for other incidents in my life), I used my favorite term – “crazy.”  She sort of laughed it off and said, “I worked with teenagers, Stacy.  I didn’t really think it was all that unusual.”

While my essay is not about this particular giant, it easily could be.  One day, I hope to write the book that features all of my giants.  I had good parents who did their best raising me.  But sometimes we need other caring adults to impact our lives as well.  This dear woman did that for me clearly – based on her comment to me yesterday – without judgement. I am thankful for the brief, yet powerful, role she played in my life.

I know that this season is busy, but can I challenge all who read this?  Whose life can you briefly touch today, this week, this month, this year, or this lifetime?  And…as you drive to work, put up the tree, or bake those cookies, consider who were giants in your life…and how you can let them know the powerful way that they impacted your life?

 

Guest Post: Waking Up

Today’s post is written by a former student of mine who is all grown up, married, and having kids.  She mentioned in a Facebook post a while back that she is doing some writing, and I asked her to share some words with my readers about her experiences and what she is learning.

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I’m basically positive my husband and I have had the worst first years of marriage of any couple I know.

We got married and had a premature baby two weeks after we moved into a townhome. Then my month old peanut and I got to camp out at the hospital with my husband while doctors did lot of testing to find that he had a disease called CMV( can’t even begin to spell it) which very nearly killed him. The disease took a toll on the transplanted kidney from his mother, so I was working, caring for my little girl and a very sick husband and pregnant with our son.

Kevin ended up having to have another transplant, which was full of its own roller coasters, but also full of blessings. As he recovered, I got to see who my husband was as a healthy man and it was great. I felt like I had a partner for the first time in our relationship rather than another person to take care of.

My son was also born healthy and on his due date after only 3 hours and 15 minutes of labor. It seemed things were slowing down and we might actually reach a less chaotic norm.

Instead of feeling hopeful and relieved, I was a basket case.

All throughout the ordeal with my daughter and husband, I felt a sense of pride that I was handling things so well. Yes it was scary and stressful at times but I never once saw the black pit I once called home. Then, once it seemed things should be going well, there it was, as dark and hateful as before.

Instead of acknowledging it however, I tried to ignore it, hoping my depression was a fluke and that it wasn’t really back after a seven year absence. My denial turned to determination. After all, we had just come through a hurricane, so there was no reason I couldn’t nip this again.

It wasn’t long after this, and I found I am expecting our third baby.

We figured then that it was just pregnancy hormones but coming up on halfway through this pregnancy, I know that it’s not. The last month has been especially hard; I’m not really sure why, but I got to a point where I became angry with my depression. I am sick of feeling broken and crazy and not even feeling like I can cope with getting my kiddos a sippy cup at times. I hate the feeling of being bogged down and just overwhelmed with the slightest thing.

I became desperate in my pleas with God to give me strength and guide to the right resources so I could figure out what was going on inside my head and even learn how to cope once again. I came across the book Mended by Angie Smith, intrigued by the title, and began reading. I’m only a few chapters in, but already the book has helped me see that, even though I prayed like crazy the past few years, I just expected God to be there and to do what I considered to be His job.

It is very humbling to be reminded that He is first and foremost God, and to realize I had looked at Him as a genie, something I scorned in others. Looking back, I began to see the ways God was giving me an opportunity to lean on Him and how I had pridefully taken stock in my own strength. More than anything, I am seeing through the last few years, how desperately God is pursuing me.

One of the things I was most afraid of growing up was living a mediocre life. I never wanted to get caught up in hum-drum.

That’s exactly what I was doing.

My friendships have suffered because I got caught up in my own world. I feel like God is doing what He has to do capture my attention, not to punish me but because He wants an intimate relationship with me. He knows I can be more, even if I’m walking around in a fog half the time.

There is so much I am still learnin, and am still frustrated by depression, but at least I am waking up again, little by little.

Book Review: Troubled Minds

I love Facebook for as many reasons as I dislike it.  I cannot stand that people (including myself sometimes) do not consider what they write before they click “post.”  I get annoyed when we are drawn in to conversations on Facebook and say things that we would never say in person. 

Our personalities are amplified on Facebook.

If the negative aspects of our personalities are amplified on Facebook, it makes sense that our positive aspects are amplified as well.  One personality type that I especially appreciate on Facebook is the “sharer.”  This is the person who sees something great and wants to let everyone know about it. Others “share” things as well, but the “sharer” tends to have credibility to those shares – perhaps the person has read the book, knows the author, or has tried the product.

A book title  “share” came across my Facebook wall recently that motivated me to purchase a book – ok…three books – immediately.  I had planned to buy the two books by Caryn at some point anyway, but buying three books on Amazon meant free shipping.  And – let’s face it – I needed summer reading just in case I actually take my vacation time.

Much like my experience with Sober Mercies by Heather Kopp (read my review by clicking here – trust me, you will love the title of the post!), Troubled Minds by Amy Simpson has consumed most of my recent free time (and has even caused me to put off some other things that were supposed to get done).  It is an absolutely compelling read.

Compelling reads tend to have similar elements such as personal stories, important factual information, or calls to action.  These types of books draw us in because of their very nature.  Amy Simpson brings all of these to the table.  It is not or but rather and.

Personal Story: Amy weaves her own family’s story throughout the book. From page one, readers know that the author has first-hand experience with mental illness as the daughter of a schizophrenic. This connection throughout the book is so important.  Amy does a great job of including this story without pushing the reader to feel pity for her and her family.  She shares some difficult experiences, and we feel for her – but she only takes the story so far as to remind readers that she knows what mental illness is, what it does, and how the church could do better to help those who suffer.  Excellent.

Factual Information:  Amy provides a useful tool in Chapter 2 with an overview of the most prevalent mental illness categories.  This allows the reader to become a lay person in this area with some understanding of the broad categories and how a mental illness may show its face.  What is does not do is prepare anyone to become a therapist!  But that is not Amy’s point, and she makes that quite clear.  Amy also shares statistical information about churches, pastors, and mental illness.  Excellent.

Action Points for Churches: Each chapter has suggestions for churches as well as stories of current churches who are ministering to those suffering from or supporting others with mental illness.  The main point of each item is that churches should do something to reduce the stigma around mental illness.  Excellent.

I have one wish in this book.

While Amy does a great job of mentioning pastors who suffer themselves, I wish she had devoted an entire chapter to this.  She primarily mentions pastors with mental illness as those who tend to be more aware of mental illness, who try to minister to others, and who have a better understanding of the need to reduce stigma.  What she does not do is suggest to congregations how they can minister to or better understand their pastors (or their family members) who suffer from mental illness.  This is not a huge drawback to the book; however, it was a missed opportunity that I think is a huge need.

I recommend this book to just about anyone who breathes.  Buy it. Read it. Share it.