Editor’s Note: I committed to share my
journey to hopefully help those who are on a similar journey with
depression. I have to admit, I’ve been
hesitant to do this because the last thing I want is anyone to feel sorry for
me. I especially feel this way today
after attending the Gala-4-Gold to benefit the Amanda Riley Foundation, which
helps those children and families battling childhood cancer. Twelve Riley Warriors lost their lives so far
this year. If you ever want to feel
sorry for someone, do it for children like this or their families. I just can’t imagine. But, I’m committed to help at least one
person with my blog posts. After my last
post, one person did reach out to me, and that made me feel good. If I can help at least one person with my
journey then I will feel like I’ve succeeded.
So the journey continues…
Oh, the irony.
For those who read my last
blog post, “Sinking Deep(er)”, I noted that I had been begrudgingly convinced
by Megan Kearney and Karl Sparklin that maybe it was time to seek counseling to
deal with my latest plunges into depression.
As I noted, I’m really not a fan of counseling, I hadn’t had good
experience with it.
Flash forward to last week, I’m
in Brazil, and I see that after my upcoming counseling appointment with Hailey,
I can’t get in again until September 20, almost a month later. I quickly panic, and immediately schedule
three appointments to get onto the schedule before the opportunity slips
away.
Yes, my attitude has
changed. I’ve been going to counseling
for about seven weeks, and I’ve loved it.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it has definitely had its ebb and flow, and I’ve
plunged deeply a few times after exploring some very difficult topics, but
overall, this experience has been overwhelmingly successful.
I’ve also had a few
epiphanies along the way about what I’m experiencing, and I’d like to share
those.
Many years ago, Laurel and I
took a hot air balloon ride in the countryside of France. It was a magical experience, but not without
its panic-filled moments for me. As we
took off, and as we landed, when I could see the trees, rivers, houses,
churches, I was fine. When we got way up
in the air, I started to panic. I tried
to rationally tell myself, this is silly, if you were fine 100 feet off the
ground, you should be fine 1,000 feet off the ground, either way, if you fell
or something happened, you’d die, so you are having an irrational fear. Yeah, that didn’t work. My rational mind couldn’t convince my
emotional mind to settle down.
I realized that this is the
same thing I face when I have irrational fears now. I’ve found that for whatever reason, I seem
to have these more often when I travel long distances away, like to South
America. Now, it may be the long
flights, the lack of sleep, sitting in a hotel room all by myself, but whatever
it is, my emotional mind takes over, and I can’t get my rational mind to
convince it that, well, it’s being irrational.
The latest was last week in
Brazil, it started harmlessly enough, one of the dogs was sick, most likely
Daisy, and I was texting back and forth with Laurel about it. At one point, she said it was probably due to
too many treats. I took that as a shot
at me, since I’m the one who gives them too many treats, so I sent a smart-ass
comment back. The next morning, I tried
texting Laurel and then calling to no avail.
My emotional mind took over. I
started thinking, she’s mad at me. Then
I started thinking, Daisy died. Then I
started thinking, Laurel was kidnapped or died or ….. I resorted to what I try
to avoid, but do out of desperation, I started texting the kids, “Have you
talked to your Mom?” I finally reached
Laurel, and her reaction was as is usual, “Worrying won’t help the situation,
it won’t do any good.” Easy for her to
say, incredibly hard for me to execute.
This has been a repetitive
pattern for me, as noted, particularly when I travel far away. Similar to the hot air balloon incident, I
try to tell myself, if I were 50 miles away or 5,000 miles away, there’s not
much I can do if something has gone horribly wrong. Again, that hasn’t worked, my rational mind
hasn’t been able to convince my emotional mind that it’s being irrational.
Hailey has been working with
me on coping skills. She suggests either
lean into the irrational fears, embrace them and basically confront them, or
distract yourself from them. Since the
fears I’m having are too life-changing and devastating, I haven’t confronted
them, but I have been working on distracting myself, with at least limited
success. I’m still a work in progress.
It’s about forgiveness. And yet, once again, I can’t seem to get my
rational mind and emotional mind to work together on this one (by the way,
Hailey says when I’m able to, that is the wise mind, but as usual, I digress).
One of my favorite moments
this year at our Small Group Retreat was when Nike Nihiser said he still
remembers what I said on his wedding day.
Nike had been divorced, he was marrying a wonderful person in Jane, and
I told him how happy I was for him, but more so how good it felt to see him so
happy. And then I told him, everyone
deserves a second chance in life.
Fast forward to some of my
conversations with Hailey, and she’s asked me if I forgive others when they’ve
done something wrong to me? I tell her
of course, we all make mistakes, we’re human.
She then asks, does that apply to me?
In the immortal words of Hamlet, “Ay,
there’s the rub!”
To be honest, it’s not
everything in life, and that’s where it gets a bit interesting. In many areas of my life, I do believe I
deserve forgiveness, but there are three areas where I really struggle, and
yes, I need to work through. One, is
with my Dad. My Dad was the greatest
cheerleader a child could have, he was always positive and seeing the good in
what I had done, but I just can’t, or won’t, see where I’ve treated him
well. Two, it’s my children, I can
remember virtually every nasty or ill-tempered comment I’ve made to them
throughout our lives together. As my
brother Jim would say, words are like bullets, once they’re out, you can’t get
them back, and the damage is done.
Three, and most importantly, and most painful for me is how I treated
Laurel. As many know I left her for a brief
period about 30 years ago, I was nasty to her, I was awful. I’m struggling to accept what I did.
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure
I can ever forgive myself, or as Hailey rightfully points out to me, “You can,
it’s a matter of if you will”. This will
take time, but the reality is that I’ve carried this guilt and pain for 30
years, and I just don’t know if I will let it go. I keep going back to something one of the
greatest theologians I know, Catherine Foster, said to me a few years ago on
this topic:
“Now, like me, you might feel that you only hold yourself to a higher
standard. But I've discovered in myself that this is my desire to boot God from
the seat of judgment and place myself there. God may forgive me, but I'm going
to keep punishing myself for as long as I feel necessary. I've learned
that this is both pride/hubris and also terrible theology. The solution to sin
is not punishment, but reconciliation. My task upon realizing my sin is not guilt
but the even harder work of opening myself to repair the breach.”
Wow, spot on. Now if
I could just get my rational brain to convince my emotional brain of this….
I look back to some of my blog posts from 2017, and that was
probably the best place I’ve ever been when it comes to spirituality, emotions
and my mental state. I probably had come
the closest I’ve ever come to being able to accept myself for who I am. As Hailey points out to me there is a
distinction between viewing yourself as a good person who has done bad things
or viewing yourself as a bad person.
Again, when I’m rational, I can see the difference, but unfortunately
there are times, I can’t, OK won’t, see the distinction. I’m not sure what has happened in those two
short years to bring me to this place, but I need to figure out how to get back
again to a better place. I’m exhausting
myself continually boomeranging between depression and anxiety, and I just can’t
keep doing this.
Going full circle to my panic with not being able to
schedule appointments for about a month and one of the reasons I like Hailey so
much is that she said to me “You’ll be fine, you have great coping skills. My job is to work my way out of a job, we
need to get to the point where you don’t need to come see me anymore, and we’ll
get there.” I like her, I trust her, and
I believe in her. To me, that is
critical to have a healthy working relationship with a counselor.
And going full circle to my comments about not wanting
people to feel sorry for me. I don’t, I
don’t deserve it, there are many people out there who do. But I really do appreciate how so many people
have been so supportive as I’ve shared my journey. Whether it’s little comments, private
messages, words of encouragement, they do mean so much. Just knowing people care, that makes all the
difference in the world. I’m still not
sure I will allow myself to forgive myself, to remove myself from the judgment
seat, but I’m so thankful that there are so many of you who seem to be able to
accept me for who I am.
