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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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.

Mental Illness: It is an Illness

As I tried to get out of bed yesterday morning, this post wrote itself in my brain. With every re-setting of the alarm and clicking on the snooze button, paragraphs formed in my mind.  I was compelled to write it. I tried to be productive all day – because of my current (crazy and, honestly, about to get crazier) work demands – it took until 4 p.m. yesterday before I had time to actually sit down at my desk and write.

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, we need to get educated about mental illness because it does not always look the way we expect it to.  With a little play on the “Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning” article’s title, I elaborated about how we expect depression (and other mental illnesses) to look one way, but they often look entirely different.

Each person’s experience with mental illness may look different than we expect.

As I thought about the post, though, I realized that – as important as the concept of knowing how depression and other mental illnesses may show themselves differently – accepting the fact that mental illness is an illness…rather than some manifestation of laziness or whatever negative adjective that has been used to describe the mentally ill…is pretty important.

Let’s all say it together (I dare you to say this out loud wherever you are right now): mental illness is an illness, and an illness needs to be treated. (Repeat as necessary)

If you (all) can agree with the truth that mental illness is an illness and – therefore – should be treated in the same way that other illnesses are treated, then another part of the stigma surrounding mental illness can be removed.

Just in case you cannot agree with this, I guess I will just keep writing the thoughts that came to me as I slept…and awoke…and slept…

Who withholds treatment from someone with diabetes?  No one!

I use diabetes as an example because it has several good correlations with mental illness.

• Both can sometimes be controlled with diet, exercise, and life choices.
• Both often require medication.
• Both are controlled best when “patient” makes and keeps appointments with a trained professional.
• Both require a lifetime outlook but could be mediated or “in remission” so to speak.

I know that I do better with my bipolar self when I eat better, walk or do yoga, and make good choices (like getting enough sleep).  When I do not do what I know I need to do, I am working against myself.  The same is true of a diabetic.  In some people with either illness, medications could be avoided (in some cases) when following the “life prescription” from our doctors.

However!!!! I had a good friend in high school who followed all of her doctor’s directions, and her cholesterol (yes, I switched illnesses…you can follow…) still required medication.  She was just five feet tall but weight under 100 lbs and never went to McDonalds.  She was not  someone you would expect to have a high cholesterol problem!  No matter what she did, though, she could not change her chemical make up without medication.

This is true of many with mental illness, but society often forgets that this is true.  There are many who expect those who suffer with depression to just pull it together or those who suffer from schizophrenia to stop hearing voices or seeing people who are not there.

Seriously?

If we accept that mental illness is an illness, then we need to agree that the illness may need treatment.  And that treatment could involve both life changes such as more exercise or eating right AND medication, therapy, or other things.  Telling the person with a mental illness to try harder is pretty insulting.

When we are someone who suffers from mental illness, we need to accept this, work with our health professionals, and make wise choices so that we can live as “normal” of as possible.  We may need to do a few things to help our condition, and we need to accept that and –  well – do them.  For example, I absolutely should start every morning with a walk.  When was the last time I did that??? Time to start – it helps!

When we are supporting someone who suffers from mental illness, we need to support that person, to hold that person accountable for going to appointments, and to encourage him or her to do all that will help – diet, exercise, medication, life changes…whatever! BUT we need to be careful and wise how we do that.  What we say is not nearly as important as how we say it.

In the past few months, I have taken some time off from this posting a lot on this blog.  While I did that, I took a blogging class that asked to consider why I write.  Originally, it was to help me to mediate the impact of my own bipolar self.

For nearly two years, I wrote and wrote and wrote. I wrote about everything – things I saw, things I did, and things I thought.  I argued against myself from one week to the next on issues.  I ranted. I raved.  My fingers flew across the keyboard.

My mind emptied, quieted, and slowed.

The blogging helped me.

Now, though, I see my purpose in this blog to a voice for those who have lost their voice to whatever biological, psychological, or illogical sickness ails them.  I want to help those who have been marginalized because of society’s misunderstanding of the crazy we feel inside our head – and trust me, I think some crazy thinks sometimes.

The foundation for this purpose first and foremost has to be to help promote the fact that mental illness is an illness.  While those of us who suffer from it – just like someone who suffers from diabetes or high cholesterol – can make choices to help mediate it, we might not be able to “just get over it.”

And we need not only to be treated but to be respected, loved, and even cherished.

I am thankful for my family and friends who have walked this road with me over the past three years since my diagnosis. While I have probably always suffered, I was incorrectly diagnosed throughout my life. Now that we have an accurate diagnosis, we can have an accurate treatment plan.

But it is not easy being me…and is not always easy being around me…but that seems to be another blog. As usual, I have babbled…and have no idea how to end…so I will just stop writing…

Happy Wednesday!

photo credit: © 2006-2013 Pink Sherbet Photography via photopin cc

Depression Doesn’t Look Like Depression

As early summer hit – that time when kids and pools collide – an article circulated my Facebook world titled “Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning.”  I skimmed as I have older children who now often take charge of younger children, and I thought to pass it on to them.

As I drove around the past few weeks, the title of the article changed. The content of the article changed…at least, in my mind it did.

The point of the article was to educate us and help us to reconstruct our visual understanding and recognition of a very real problem.  Children drown in pools often because those around them do recognize the warning signs.  We think drowning looks one way. And we are wrong.

The same is true of depression – or any mental illness, really.

Unlike drowning, depression has no singular season. There is not a single time in the year that one should become hyper-vigilant about knowing the signs of depression or mental illness.  And – unlike the drowning article – a single 500 word article with some bullets cannot sum up the entire warning signs of all mental illnesses.

We need to get educated!

I am currently reading Troubled Minds by Amy Simpson and plan to have a review of it out one of these days.  I have only 40 pages left, but life has interrupted me.  The point is that it is one book that I can already recommend.  The internet is also full of information – webmd and the Mayo Clinic each have excellent resources about mental health warning signs.

Depression may not look like depression – or at least our perception of it.  It’s time to find out what it does look like so that we can help those around us…or get help ourselves!

To Be Remembered

In my pastor huz’s sermon on Sunday, he used our different love languages as an illustration.  He talked about how my love language is not receiving gifts…he had been speaking that language to me for several years.

Ten years ago, we attended a couples’ retreat where we learned about love languages and discovered that mine are acts of service and quality time.  In his sermon, he stated, “What Stace longs for – what communicates love to her – is to be thought of…to be remembered.  I think that this is what she longs for.”

As he said these words (and as I listened to the sermon online just moments ago to get the quote right), tears choked me.  I swallowed hard, and tears burned my eyes….he is so right!

I fear being forgotten, forsaken, and abandoned.

There are thirty-nine years of experiences that have created who I am today, and I have spent about half of those years in counseling to understand why I think this way. 

In my current life, this fear has no rational basis.  My husband has shown me time and time again – even when I am hard to live with or am in a running (click here to read about this) phase – that he is not interested in ending our marriage.  On a regular basis, he reminds me that I am safely in his thoughts and that I have nothing to fear.

But I want to be remembered…to be thought of…to be important to someone – or many people…and I want to spend time with people who think of me.

An aside: it is not that I do not like gifts at all. In fact, I love gifts! I loved that my dad and his wife bought our family Fleetwood Mac tickets for Christmas…but I really loved that they came to Minneapolis, spent the weekend, and then went to the show with us.  I love when a friend gives me a card with money in it that says, “Spoil yourself!” – and I really love when that same friend has lunch with me to give me the card or for absolutely no reason.

As I read Psalm 22 (one of the several Psalms for today’s reading in the sermon series), I realized (again) that I am not unique in this.  David felt abandoned …forgotten. 

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
² My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest

¹¹ Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

Jesus said similar words on the cross when God turned away from Him.  Hell may have fire and brimstone, but more scary to me is the fact that it will be void of God and His love.  To be in hell is to experience the ultimate in abandonment, and many of us feel that on a daily basis.

Like David, Jesus, and other throughout the Bible, our hearts cry out to be remembered.  We physically feel the impact of our fear as our hearts and bodies ache.

But we are not abandoned.  No – we are not forgotten.

In another of the Psalms for today (34), David wrote that the Lord is good and that we can take refuge in Him.

⁴ I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
⁵ Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
⁶ This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
⁷ The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.

As we seek Him, we will find Him.  As we find Him, He will turn to us and deliver us from our fears.  He is good, He hears, and He encamps around us.

⁸ Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

Praise be to God!

**Note: I wonder if we are the way that we are sometimes because we fear being vulnerable with each other.  And I wonder if we fear that because of experiences we have had in the past.  Today: if you have the chance to reach into another person’s life and see the fears and the loneliness, speak words of comfort and truth…and go ahead, give that person a big hug!

Sometimes we are the voice and arms of God who loves us.  Be that…

Results of a Racing Mind

When a mind races, it needs to be helped.  That is what I have learned.  I did not always get the help that I needed, and sometimes – in the past – I had been wrongly medicated which only made the mind racing worse.  This blog stems from my need to help my racing mind.

And one of the ways that it has helped me is that it lets me have many blog worlds.

I started blogging on a regular basis (nearly daily) just over a year ago after a dear friend’s daily blog challenged me to join her.  She has been an encouragement ever since.  She blogs using WordPress, so I thought that was the right choice for me too.  I had set up my original blog using Blogspot, but I moved it to WordPress.

One day, another friend mentioned to me that the Fargo Forum was looking for bloggers who wrote about women’s issues.  I do not write exclusively about women’s issues, but I thought, “I am a woman.  I can write about woman stuff.”  I contacted the peeps over at the Fargo Forum, and they encouraged me to set up a blog using their site – Areavoices.

I did not get any featured spots on the women’s stuff site, but…things have been great with Areavoices, and I love interacting with people from Jamestown, Fargo, Duluth, Willmar, and all of the little towns in between.

Recently, I contacted the Fridley Patch with information about the musical that my kiddos are in this weekend.  From that email conversation, I set up a little blog on their site as well.

I am blogging in a lot of places!

Fortunately, I have one software piece that allows me to post to multiple sites with a click.  I can maintain the multiple locations without much work.  The cool thing, though, is that I get to have a variety of looks to the blog.  The Fridley Patch hosts their own software, so I have little say in how that looks.  But the others – I have full control!

This past week has been a racing mind week, so I made some changes…

Check them out, and enjoy the multiple creative sides of my personality.

• WordPress
• Areavoices
• Blogspot

I wonder how long this will last…

Other blog posts/pages about this blog and my racing mind might interest you.

• Obsessive Mind or Racing Mind?
• The Girl With the Racing Mind