Control Freak? I Believe That's Me.

I had an unexpectedly good morning today. I wasn't expecting it to be bad, but I really felt quite well. I went for a bike ride (big deal when you have three kids) and made a lot of phone calls that have been on my to-do list for weeks. When I picked my two older kids up from day camp I was feeling quite in control of my life.

I love to feel in control of my life.

An hour later my son was having a tantrum and the afternoon spun away from me in a hurry. Kids going crazy. Mom yelling and going generally berserk. I roll my eyes at my crazy kids and wonder how they can be so disrespectful and then finally it occurs to me that maybe there's a better way to handle this.

I just have a very hard time giving them space and letting them act like obnoxious little kids. Most of it is normal and we'd all be better off if I could ignore it.

The main thing seems to be that I want to be able to make things right. My oldest child is seven years old and for seven years I've been trying to find just the right schedule, sleep pattern, nutritional balance, way of talking about feelings, so on and so forth .... that will make our lives happy and bright.

Meanwhile - the negotiations for selling our house are going just haywire enough to make us uncertain the deal will make it all the way to closing. And I am changing my eating habits in an effort to lose weight. It's motivated by my recent bout with cancer and an urgent desire to minimize the risk of another chronic illness. Lingering side-effects from chemo are complicating my efforts.

So, you know, I'm working hard to do everything right. And things are still going wrong. I am alarmed by how easily I topple over the edge. Tonight I left the house because I kept wanting to cry. It reminded me of the unrelenting sadness of depression.

I suppose I could be encouraged that leaving the house for a while is helping.

Get Rid of the %$#! House

We have been trying to sell our house for a year. A YEAR. A long year of paying the mortgage every month.

Great news: We sold the house!

Bad news: We haven't closed yet and the list of things we need to spend money on just keeps growing and growing and growing.

We're losing money on the house, of course. We're selling it for quite a bit less than we paid for it. And the inspector found a few things that we needed to repair. And the buyer has a government loan so the government has another list of things that need to be repaired. And in the meantime the water heater exploded. Blah, blah, blah...

It's not a desperate financial crisis. We *can* pay for these things. We're not going hopelessly into debt. I am very thankful for that.

It is an emotional crisis. I just want to be cut off from all the responsibilities connected to the church my husband was serving there. At every setback I want to call the sr. pastor and tell him a bill is in the mail and by the way I'M STILL MAD AT YOU! We have paid so much in time, money, grief, mental & emotional & spiritual health because of the abuse in that church's leadership.

It makes me realize how powerful the undertow of depression is and how close I am to the shoreline. Most of the time I feel like my mental health is safe but when these stressors -- the ones connected specifically to our last church -- stack up, I feel like I might go under. It takes a lot of conscientious effort to keep my head up. God has been merciful to hold me together so far.

When Church Makes You Crazy, Part 3

I expected to finish this list last week but my life just isn't going as I'd planned lately. The most recent mishap was a wood splinter that pushed itself under my fingernail. On the index finger of my dominant hand. I thought I pulled it out but now that the finger is swollen and complaining, I think I missed a piece. Going to the doctor tomorrow for what may be a very unpleasant repair job.

Anyway - here's the conclusion of my strategies for coping with a church that makes you crazy.

Coping Strategy #4: Get Professional Help. By the time we moved away, I had the support of a psychiatrist, a therapist and a pastor. I needed all of them. Most of our life is connected to church so a stressful church setting means a stressful life. I desperately needed the relief and perspective that these people gave me.

My pastor gave me two essential things: the words of Jesus applied directly to my life and the words of an experienced churchman. I never imagined that church could be threatening. He understood how betrayed I felt and helped me hold on to the hope of Christ even when the church made me want to throw up my hands and give up.

I needed the psychiatrist because I needed medication for my depression. I've been told that constant stress can lead to depression. Other occupations have the benefit of divisions between home and work that cushion exposure to stress. I don't think we're the only clergy family that finds it difficult to maintain those boundaries, so stress oozed all over our lives.

Seeing a therapist helped me get some perspective on my situation. I had a hard time seeing my life with any objectivity and she offered different ways of thinking about what was happening in my life and how I could respond to it. I also needed the safety of the therapist's office, where I could say anything that was on my heart. Every other part of my life seemed fragile but her office was a sturdy place to tend my bruised heart.

Coping Strategy #5: Expect Blessing. I had a friend who kept saying that to me and I often thought she was being kind of a ninny. Do you not see what is happening to me and to my family? Don't you see that God is letting us wither here?

Later I began to replay the phrase and consider that possibility that God would bless us. It is hard to be hopeful when everything looks bleak, but because of Christ we always have reason to hope. Like the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' robe, trusting that He could heal her even though she'd been suffering for years. She expected blessing.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5:25-34)

Depression Symptoms: Recurrent Thoughts of Death

Sometime last year I was driving on the highway alone and when the possibility of a fatal car crash passed through my mind it did not upset me. That was distressing. When I stopped later, I called a friend. I didn’t tell her the whole story, just that I was sad and needed to talk a minute. Reconnecting with the outside world (highway driving is like cocooning) adjusted my brain enough to shake off the mood.

When I described this episode to Therapist, the phrase “suicidal ideations” came up. Me? Really? Suicide? No way. Labeling my thoughts suicidal ideations alarmed me. It was hard to grasp that the urgency I associate with being suicidal related to me.

I cannot imagine that I would ever end my life. I readily imagined, though, how comforting it would be to go on a long vacation and come back in a year or so when the hard part was over. Therapist told me that a healthy person might feel uncertain, unhappy, anxious, but still that "this is my life so I will get through it." I was so wrapped up in my own crazy world that wanting to disappear seemed reasonable. Wise, even.

I get it now. Depression made my world so small and dark that death seemed comforting. I think that telling someone what I was thinking was the most helpful step. As soon as I saw the concern and anxiety it aroused in a friend, I realized the danger. I still felt like there were a million other people who could, and should, take care of my life instead of me but I held onto the assurance that God had given me to my family and that He was with me through my depression.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here.

Depression Symptoms: Substance Abuse

Several months ago I was working on a series of posts about my experience as it relates to the formally recognized symptoms of depression. There are a few still to go.

I’ve seen enough movies to know that alcoholism is associated with depression (Crazy Heart, anyone?) but have not thought much about it except in the abstract. I was surprised when, in the middle of my own depression, I discovered that drinking is an effective anesthetic.

The denomination in which I grew up is historically a tee-totaling crowd. I picked up on that undercurrent and drank little even through college. I became accustomed to social drinking during our years at the seminary. Odd, I think, and problematic, but that’s for another time.

I remember clearly the night I realized I needed to guard against excessive drinking. My family was out to dinner, celebrating a major achievement in my brother’s career, and we shared a couple bottles of particularly yummy wine. It crossed my mind that I would like to stay there and keep drinking and forget the unrelenting sadness of my life.

I told my husband about it that night. I’ve found that telling my secrets takes the power out of them. This one seemed particularly shameful to me. I don’t think I ever told it to anyone else or ever spoke about it again with my husband.

The urge to drink too much came and went throughout my depression, but I think that having spoken about it aloud helped me stay aware of how our unhappiness could have been multiplied by alcohol abuse.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here.

When Can I Stop Needing So Much?

Chemo is finally done. ALL done. It will be a few weeks until I can have a test to ensure the cancer is gone and I fully expect it will be.

The depression is also gone. Every day that I make plans or march happily through an ordinary day I remember how miserable it was to be unable to do that. I recently wrote to a friend that I feel like I'm waking up after missing the last three years of my life. It feels SO good.

This morning I read a post at Church Whisperer about self-reliance and it reminded me of an unhappy thought that has crossed my mind several times in the last weeks: I am eager to be able to take care of myself. I have been depending on so many people to take up the slack - care for my kids, feed my family, encourage me when I cannot come up with any encouraging thoughts on my own - and I'm tired of it.

I feel weak and needy on Sunday mornings. I know there is strength to be gained from worship and from conversation with the kind souls there but I want to stay home and hide until I can show up on Sunday feeling put together. Everyone else seems to have it together. They don't look like enduring an hour in the pew with their kids is going to make them cry or strangle someone.

I KNOW, of course, that weak and needy is precisely how God wants us to come to Him. I know that less of me and more of Him is good. My pastor suggested once that my need is a gift to the people who are able to help me.

I suppose I am not the only one who is torn between what I know is good and what I feel like I want. Must it be so complicated?

Talk Therapy

The last week and half has been pretty discouraging to me. I'm so tired of chemo and of hoping that things will be better in a while. Last Christmas I was so deeply depressed and I remember the effort it took to get through the holiday telling myself that "next year will not feel so miserable."

Christmas is going to be hard this year. I've already written my family to tell them I won't be able to give them gifts this year because the energy that would require is beyond me. I am, once again, looking to a holiday season through which I need to tell myself, "next year will be better."

Yesterday I spent an hour with my therapist and it was so helpful. Airing all my anxieties and griefs to someone who can give them a context and affirm that everything I feel is connected to reality was deeply reassuring.

I've discovered that, on the heels of major depression, feeling sad is frightening. If it persists for more than a day I begin to worry that I'm headed to that desperate place again. I do not EVER want to go back there, where sadness is everything. I do not yet trust my ability to judge whether my sadness is connected to my circumstances or is taking on a life of its own.

In depression, I felt sad for no apparent reason. Even if everything was going well I felt sad. Healthy sadness has a reason. Chemotherapy, a house that will not sell, lingering anger toward sr. pastor, knowing I will be sick during the holidays - these are reasons to be sad.

Today I feel better. I will try to think only about today and leave the coming unpleasantness alone until I have to deal with it.

Visine in My Purse

This is a guest post by a fellow pastor's wife who has dealt with depression. Her experience differs from mine in how her emotions were affected. Depression made me feel too much; the writer of this post seems to feel too little.

I carry Visine in my purse and I am not a sufferer of dry itchy allergy eyes.

I have been told that I was in the stage of my depression/anxiety journey called blunting.

blunting: a decrease in the intensity of emotional expression from the level one would normally expect as a reaction to a specific situation.

I toss between settling into being blunt or tweaking and self talking myself into a more "normal" state of being. This is the tricky thing about being me.

Do I

A. Wean down and possibly panic....or

B. Add a few more mg and resemble a zombie...

The answer for now is neither Neither A nor B. It is VISINE!

I have somewhat enjoyed my stay in the land of blunting. For a time I was very satisfied not feeling happy or sad. It was refreshing to not deal with emotions at extremes. While trying to tweak medications and leave the land of blunting proves difficult I am now realizing I have forgotten how to react to situations happy and sad. It takes a lot of energy.

So, you ask..Where does the Visine fit in to all of this? I was having coffee with a friend and telling her about my recent endeavor to leave the land of blunting. I would like to again be able feel the strong emotion of happiness and not just the thoughts of being happy. This for me involves a very long process of tweaking meds. The part that is hardest for me is THE FUNERALS. See, I am also a PW (Pastor’s wife) and I know for a fact the very first time I realized I had no emotion was at a funeral of someone I really knew, really enjoyed, and was really going to miss. Everyone around me had tears flowing from their eyes and audible sobs as I sat there. I began to feel very self-conscious of what I must look like to the mourning families at all the funerals I attend. I must look like a stone cold hard woman. YUCK that is not really me.

My very dear friend looked at me and said: “Just put some Visine in your purse! Before you walk into church squirt a little in each eye, let the make-up run appropriately and grab a tissue.”

So, instead of trying to rush through the process of medication changes I am now at a much slower steady pace thanks to the Visine in my purse!

Cancer vs. Depression

So many times in the last month I have told my friends, who are surprised and delighted by my mental and emotional health, that I find cancer much easier to cope with than depression.

Cancer sounds ominous and miserable, as it is, but it is not messing with my brain or my heart. My cancer is, as cancers go, manageable. My prognosis is very good; I am plodding through several months of chemotherapy, but I know when to expect it will end and that helps me cope with bad days.

Cancer is also a public illness, where depression is largely private. Everyone in our congregation knows I have cancer and they have some idea how to talk to me about it and how to help me. They bring me meals, they care for my children, they pray for me. I can talk about feeling crummy or being sad that my hair is falling out.

Depression was a completely different experience for me. I felt isolated and always uncertain with whom I might talk about my depression. Mental illness is hard to understand. For someone who has never suffered from depression it is hard to figure out how to be helpful.

In the midst of depression I lacked perspective beyond my own experience. The world seemed dark and hopeless and I found it hard to understand the hopeful things other people said to me. It felt like they were talking in fairy tales and I was living in the real world, a dark tiny world of endless sadness.

The couple of times that I felt vaguely suicidal, usually in the form of wishing someone else who was more competent could live my life for a while, my therapist told me that was not normal. Healthy people, she'd say, see unpleasant circumstances in their lives as a challenge, but one they take on because it's their life. I could hardly imagine it. Who would want to live the life I was in then?

Now I understand it. I hate cancer, but it is part of my life and I will cope with it the best I can. God's grace is sufficient, one day at a time, and someday this will end.

Therapy

I have followed with interest the blog of a pastor coping with depression and coming to terms with needing a therapist. When I needed the care of a therapist, one appeared before me as if by magic. Her counseling style and personality seemed perfectly suited to my needs. It rarely occurred to me that I'd been spared the arduous process of choosing a therapist.

Then we moved. While my depression has lifted and a million things about my life seem better I am not confident enough to be apart from the care and attention of a professional counselor. The upheaval of moving, coaching kids through a move, cancer, a new congregation, approaching winter.... it seems ripe for a repeat appearance of my Great Foe, depression.

Finding a therapist is hard. On my list of considerations:

Location

Insurance coverage/cost

Therapeutic style

Christian perspective

Gender (I am more readily at ease with a woman)

It doesn't work to ask around about a good therapist the way I do about dentists and hair salons. Recommendations for mental health care require a little discretion. My husband identified a couple of good people to ask, as did I. Some of our inquiries were fruitless - generated no names or suggestions that did not suit us for various reasons. He finally found someone who referred us to a useful list.

Then I sorted through the list and eliminated most of the names off the bat. Some have specific areas of expertise - family conflict, teens, etc. Others had religious affiliations that are inappropriate for me: buddhism, new age, or branches of Christianity with which I am not comfortable. One Christian counseling office near us posts its intake form online. I browsed it and noticed this item: "Does the client consider him/herself to be born again?" I understand that question to refer to an understanding of the Christian faith with which I do not identify. I don't want to battle off theological questions in pursuit of good mental health.

During my husband's vicarage year - an internship during seminary - we visited a therapist together because we felt overwhelmed by loneliness and stress. Being far from family and friends, in an unfamiliar and challenging situation, was sometimes confusing for us. The counselor we saw was not helpful. She couldn't figure out what our problem was, so she spent half and hour talking to my husband about nurturing his inner child when he preaches. It was very weird.

I landed upon a Christian counseling practice with an office near my home. My schedule is so full of doctor visits and child-tending responsibilities that travel time could seriously limit my ability to see a therapist as often as I could need. I judged from the web site that the practice is overtly Christian but respectful of the fact that clients are looking for mental health care, not theology lessons.

I described my first appointment as "auditioning a new therapist." It was important to me to remind myself that establishing a therapeutic relationship is my decision. I felt perfectly at ease with this therapist and appreciated the questions she asked at my first appointment. I discovered that she is also married to a pastor and recognizes everything I describe about my anxieties related to that role. Her affiliation is with a different denomination, but every reference to Christian faith falls inside of what I think of as Apostles' Creed Christianity: things we all agree on. She has not asked me if I am born again.

In the course of writing this blog, I've made friends with other pastors' wives who realize they would benefit from professional counseling. For some of them, identifying a therapist who meets their criteria is an arduous process. I pray for them, that God will provide what they need and give them eyes to recognize it when they see it.

Gracious Insomnia

It's the middle of the night. I've been having a lot of strange and distressing dreams this week, including tonight. Earlier this week they were vivid dreams in which my children were in danger and I could not rescue them. I can't remember tonight's dream, but when I woke I was thinking about the sr. pastor at the church we recently left.

Being now in a congregation that is warm, loving, and gracious is helping me interpret what was off kilter in our last church. I now realize how legalistic the place felt to me. I have often thought that sr. pastor seemed pharisaic, and when I woke from my dream tonight that was on my mind again.

I respect for the pharisees for their effortfulness. They desperately wanted to get it right so that God would love them. I think that's what motivates sr. pastor. He knows the Bible like no one I have ever met. He can whip out a verse for any situation. He works hard to make things happen and wants to align the universe in such a way as to please God.

At other times I have recognized how sad this is, but tonight I feel how tragic this is. The poor man has memorized the Bible and missed the point. God wants to embrace and comfort him and then use him to share God's gracious love with others. He is missing out on the blessing of God's grace because he is working so hard to do right.

Tonight that seems to me an even more desperate situation than a major depression.

The congregation where my husband is now the pastor has expressed no expectations except these two: That God has brought Husband here to care for them and that God is working among them.

It is a stunning blessing to be with people who trust God so thoroughly. It makes me realize that in our last congregation it felt like there were specific expectations about what Husband would be or do, and when he disappointed those the leaders' confidence in God's faithfulness waned. Husband was accused of not listening to the Holy Spirit and of lacking pastoral judgment. I described this accusation to someone recently and she reframed it as "spiritualizing controlling tendencies."

While we were there, those accusation bred doubt in our hearts about our relationship with God and Husband's call to serve as a pastor. Now those same accusations cause me grief for them. How sad, how desperate, to have so little confidence in God's faithfulness.

The pastor who preached at Husband's installation reminded me that there will be challenges and seasons of frustration or unhappiness here, but that "it seems this may be a place of mercy and grace." What else could I possibly hope for? We are weak and broken and sinful, living among people who are likewise. Mercy and grace is what I most crave.

Goodbye Depression!

I am DEEEEElighted to report that my depression seems to have wandered away. The last time I checked - last spring - it was still holding tight. Then life went completely crazy and I stopped checking every day to see if I was better. Now things are settling into a routine in our new home and I notice that the parts of me I've been missing for so long are back.

For example:

I enjoy being with my kids. I cannot remember when I last thought it was fun to be the mom at my house. I have been simply enduring the work of parenting for a couple of years. I could see that they were happy and imagined that could be fun for me, but it wasn't. Now I enjoy their silliness, their creativity, their incomparably adorable little faces. Even their tantrums and sassy attitudes are ok with me. I'm the mom, they're supposed to act that way, and I can handle it.

When I am trapped in bed by the exhaustion that comes with chemotherapy, I think about the things I want to do when I feel better. Some are short-term: on good days, I like to write, to read, to cook, to play with my kids. Others are long-term: when this chemo is over, I want to plan a vacation. I want to paint my bedroom. I want to have new friends over for dinner. We live in a parsonage and I've enjoyed imagining an open house for the congregation this spring. A year ago, such a thought would have overwhelmed me.

My husband is not as perky as I. He has been adapting to or trying to prevent incomprehensible, unpredictable unkindness for two years and it will probably take a while to process and cope with that. I understand that, and I miss him, and I am waiting for him to come back to me. I am sad about that. A year ago, I was desperate to fix it. Now I am comfortable with knowing I cannot fix it. I can be next to him, love him, share myself with him, pray for him. These are my roles in his life. God will heal him. It is good for me to feel safe and content even when my husband does not.

If you've ever been depressed, or desperate to heal the pain of someone you love, you'll recognize how revolutionary that is.

I cannot say how thankful I am to be well. It surprises me every day. When I notice that I am happy, in the moment, free of pervasive fear or anxiety, I marvel at what God has done. In the midst of depression, I really thought this would never happen.

Adrenaline Rush

I have had a surprisingly pleasant week. My life really, absolutely sucks a lot right now. In the (roughly) two years I've been dealing with depression, though, I've found that the adrenaline rush of a crisis alleviates depressive symptoms. For a while.

Going to the hospital, finding out I had a tumor, focusing on coming home, then coming home and enjoying the rush of love, encouragement and support from friends and family buoyed me for several days.

This afternoon I started to sink again and could almost feel the clouds descending. The vague notions I've had this week of chemotherapy, a likely move (still considering that call!), and the weight of all the work and decisions that lie between here and there looks like TOO MUCH. A lot too much.

Low Mo

I keep hoping I can stop writing reports of being surprised by my own depressive symptoms. Not yet! I think that I can stop writing about them when they stop surprising me. I continue to be an optimist so when things look up for a week or two I'm primed to think: CURED!

The psychiatrist I've been seeing thinks I'm doing very well and approved me to gradually decrease the dose of my anti-depressant. I have no philosophical objection to medication for mental health, but it would feel good to stop taking it. It's a sign of independence and improved health.

/+/+/+/

For the first part of May I felt quite well: motivated, more energetic, even-keeled. I've been making steady progress toward some good routines - sleeping on a regular schedule, for 8 hours instead of 10; personal devotion; some exercise. I haven't really tried, I've just felt like doing those things. All very good.

Then I got moody and bored with everything. Low on motivation. That stupid episode with Voldemort threw me off. Husband is still having a difficult time and I am sad for him and I miss the man I remember. I spent a week or so feeling like life could just waddle along without me and I'd watch.

/+/+/+/

Last night I finally figured out how to explain this stuff to Husband. I want to tell him about this kind of thing but I also want to protect him from more bad mojo. Protecting is something I do as a parent for my children and I'm not his parent. I'm his partner.

As soon as I described all this moody weirdness aloud to him I felt entirely relieved. Suddenly I wanted to make some plans for the next day.

/+/+/+/

Depression is mysterious to me. Painful & tenacious.

Feelings vs Depression

In the last week or so I have felt: happy, sad, motivated, proud, angry, disappointed, uncertain, annoyed, content, silly, tired, appreciated, loved, challenged, smug, chastised, relieved.

I have not felt despairing, hopeless, or desperate.

Isn't that nice?

Wilted Lily

On my Easter lily day I told my husband after dinner, "It's been nice to have a good day." I wanted to be sure I appreciated it. Glad I did that quickly - the bloom has faded.

Yesterday I was in tears and so tired and couldn't find a pleasant thought to ponder. We were traveling to visit out-of-town family and highway driving is a hard time to adjust a mood. My mind kept wandering back to themes that make me feel sad or desperate. I am so exhausted. Why do I have to take my job (parenting) with me everywhere I go? I really, really, REALLY want a vacation. I probably NEED a vacation. How can we make that happen? Who could watch the kids for several days? What if nobody can? This will never end.

The only "true" part of that is me being tired. I'm sure we can work out a time to get away. The catastrophizing path in my brain is just so familiar.

Depression Symptoms: Worthlessness

A profound sense of worthlessness

About a year ago I pasted these two pictures of myself into my journal.

The black-on-white image shows how I have experienced my self for most of my life. The boundary between me and everyone else was permanent and easy for me to see. A task like listing 10 words to describe myself seemed simple. Among people who believe or see things differently than I did, I might have remained quiet but identified points of disagreement and felt easy about living with them.

This chalk-on-sky-blue expresses how I have experienced myself for much of the past year. I am not vivid against the background. I blend in, find it difficult to distinguish the difference between myself and the people around me. A finger rubbed against this image blurs it, and friction made me feel like I was disappearing.

I love my husband and children so much and, as our small world came to seem dangerous, I devoted myself entirely to protecting them from pain. I couldn't do much but I wore myself out trying. I felt isolated with my kids and tried to fulfill every caretaking responsibility as creatively and energetically as ever. Eventually I felt lost, inadequate, and resentful. I felt myself disappearing inside of all that they needed.

Children are miserable sources of identity. They hardly know that I am separate from them so they do little to reinforce my boundaries. My response to the conflict at church, my husband's depression, and my own escalating fear and anxiety was withdrawal. It was a destructive cycle. I was losing a clear sense of my self and withdrew from almost every relationship or activity that reinforced my identity.

Much of the past year has been devoted to establishing relationships and routines that help me see myself. Now I have several friends in town who know me well and with whom I feel completely at ease.

Writing this blog has been incredibly helpful. It is a perfect combination of describing my experience for my own benefit and getting feedback from readers that helps me see myself and my experience through someone else's eyes. Thank you all for caring for me that way.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here

Being the Pastor's Wife

At the seminary, I recall a very conscientious effort to help wives of students develop a sense of community and mutual support. It seemed like a good idea, since we were all in the same oddly-shaped boat. It didn’t work out too well for me, though. I felt always on the outside – not German enough, not pious enough, not sweet enough, not “Lutheran” enough – to fit in. I grew up in another denomination and would still be there, I suppose, except that I love a Lutheran man whom God has called to be a pastor. During those first few years I struggled just to understand and accept the Lutheran interpretation of baptism and communion and to figure out how to use the hymnal.

As the years go on, it is a happy surprise for me that the core of Lutheran doctrine is so liberating, so clear about the nature of my relationship to God in Christ. The more I understand the freer I feel to depend on and grow in relationship with Him.

I still feel like I’m on the outside. The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod seems to have a particular culture and I do not feel like a part of it. When I wind up in groups where everyone else has two degrees of separation from every Lutheran who ever lived, I am lost. My uncle didn’t teach your cousin religion in high school; my grandpa wasn’t the pastor who officiated at your husband’s sister’s wedding.

I am stranded on a bridge: too Lutheran to be anything else, and too uncomfortable with the Lutheran cultural identity I’ve encountered to feel I belong inside of it.

Generally speaking, all of this is ok. Depressive episodes of self-doubt notwithstanding, I like myself. I do not, however, assume that other people will like my particular amalgamation of orthodox and non-traditional, reverent and irreverent, conservative and liberal.

The spiritually wise choice is to let this conflict nudge me deeper in God’s Word and an identity that rests solely on Christ. That sounds simple but it isn’t.

Easter Worship

I didn't make it to church this morning.

That's not a confession, it's a lament. It's a miserable irony of depression that the things I want most are the most difficult to do--sometimes they seem impossible. The good I want to do I do not do...

I absolutely planned to go this morning. I'd talked to the kids about it and checked on whether the nursery would be available. Then I woke up this morning with visions of my impatient children, overflow crowds, and all that holiday hullabaloo that can feel so lonesome.

Yuck. This is such crap. I kind of feel like I've missed out on the most important day of the year.

Depression Symptoms: Crying

I am was not a crier. Every once in a while my husband would get a shoulderful when I felt overwhelmed, but mostly I kept my emotions under control.

When husband took medical leave, I cried uncontrollably for a week. I couldn’t do anything because I was crying so much. I didn’t want to go anywhere or talk to anyone because I feared I might burst into tears. Bursting into tears is embarrassing and awkward and, I thought, inappropriate. Even my kids, who are 99% self-centered, were worried about me.

I made it through that week and regained my composure. I thought things were going to get better after that. For a couple of months, they seemed to be. Then some fresh stupidity came about at church and I realized peace was not on the horizon. The crying started again and I couldn’t stop.

The constant crying is what prompted me to see a therapist. It was such a weird feeling. I appreciate a good cry, the kind that relieves stress and afterward I can see clearly things that had seemed foggy. This crying was different. It was like a nosebleed that can’t be stopped. Just when I’d think it was over, I’d start sobbing again. I couldn’t shake it off. I didn’t feel better afterward. I just felt sad.

Taking medication and talking to Therapist both helped this symptom a lot very quickly. Sympathy and perspective were the first two things I got from therapy. I’d closed my world down to a tiny, isolated place where it was hard to not feel desperate.

I’ve learned to talk to some people about how I feel. Writing this blog is a tremendous help in dealing with feelings I don’t understand and feeling like I’m part of a community. Just knowing that people close to me understand things are hard relieves a lot of stress.

To read all the posts in the depression symptoms series, go here.