Practicing Sunday Morning

Last night my husband and I took our three boys to church to practice for Sunday morning. There's no special performance; we were just practicing the usual Sunday morning procedure.

Sunday school started last week. We went to church for fellowship time (eating and talking) which is followed immediately by classes. When it was time to take the kids to their classes, my 5-year-old had disappeared. I walked all around the building looking for him and 10 minutes later saw him in the hallway crying with his preschool teacher. He didn't want to go to class and so hid in his preschool cubby.

My husband could tell something was wrong because he saw me searching and looking worried but he was starting class for the adults and couldn't help me parent. He would help if I asked but this kind of thing happens nearly every week.

So for practice we sat in the sanctuary and talked about the parts of the worship service. They were most interested in talking about the offering and what poor people might buy with the money we give them. I didn't tell them yet that we are the poor people benefiting from the offering. Then we practiced waiting for Mom before leaving the sanctuary and walking down the hallway and telling Mom before you leave a room.

Looking forward to seeing if anything goes more smoothly tomorrow.

How have you helped your kids learn how to behave at church?

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.

Travel with Kids

I have hardly gone anywhere (apart from moving) for the last year because of surgery and chemotherapy. I suppose my travel before that was kind of limited because depression sapped my energy. Anyway, it's been a while since I took the kids to visit either set of grandparents.

This weekend, we went. It was just me and all three kiddos on a 6-hour drive. I used to think that was manageable. I think I used to be crazy.

They are pretty good travelers but they are young and sitting for several hours is boring. We stopped for running around, we rotated their seats around the van, we had books and toys for entertainment. But still there is so much coaching and negotiating and I-can't-pick-that-up-I'm-driving!

I wonder if it's me. I did not feel creative about playing I Spy in the car or planning helpful stops en route. I just wanted them to leave me alone so I could drive in peace. How do other people travel with kids? Lots of pastors' families drive long distances to visit relatives. There must be a reasonable way to do it.

Pharmacy Round 1, 2, 3 ...

My husband and I have spent most of this week at the doctor's office or the pharmacy. We took a break for the storm event of the decade. (Like many Lutherans, we live in the midwest.) Our community was at a standstill for a couple of days.

Highlights:

Friday - school nurse calls to tell me oldest child has ringworm and needs doctor's note to return to school on Monday. Schedule appt. with pediatrician and am advised to use Tinactin.

Saturday - husband to urgent care (sinus infection)

Monday - oldest to doctor, who says yes this is ringworm and treat it with Tinactin. (I spent the whole morning and $20 on this.)

Tuesday - storm arrives

Wednesday - life on hold for storm. No school. Crazed children trapped in my house.

Thursday - middle child to dr. (strep)

Friday - youngest child to dr. for follow-up on ear infection. It was in just one ear, now it is in both.

It's the kind of week that makes me feel like I will never be free of my children. I do love them. I love that my oldest is interested in chapter books now. I love that our middle child always has an answer when I ask if he had a dream last night ("I was on a pogo stick shooting bad guys with a water gun"). I love it when our youngest complains that his brother is "saying too many words. I want a turn!"

I also want them to LEAVE ME ALONE! Anyone want to meet me in Hawaii for a couple of weeks on the beach?

What I (Don’t) Pray For

God pointed out something distressing to me today. I write down some of the people I want to remember to pray for and all of them are people who do not live in my house. I neglect to ask God’s blessing on the people closest to me! It’s shameful.

The reason for the omission was immediately clear to me. Every intercessory prayer on my list is a person or situation over which I am sure I have no control - people who are sick or grieving, or who are on the periphery of my life such that I care about them but have no influence over them.

My family, however, is *my* responsibility. I take care of my kids and participate in the important aspects of my husband’s life. If something is not right with one of them, I take steps to make it better.

The layers of my illusion that I have control are stunning. I’ve written down the names of my kids and my husband because it seems I need to be reminded that God is responsible for them and He’s invited me to express His care and love for them.

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.

Stress Contagion

The last several weeks have not gone smoothly for me at church. A series of problems involving the kids -- sickness, tears and pleas for me to stay in Sunday school, multiplied misbehavior during worship -- has disrupted my plan every week.

I am an excessively self-aware parent. I regularly evaluate my own behavior and attitudes and try to decipher how I am affecting my children. I have purposely avoided analyzing our Sunday morning misadventures. There are so many reasonable explanations: they are young, there are three of them, it is winter, they are tired, I am tired.

I'm losing patience with these explanations, though. I'm pretty sure the stress I feel on Sunday is getting them wound up. I don't have any idea what I might do about it. Sunday is stressful. I want desperately to be at church and to be glad I'm there. No matter what I pray, or read, or try to think about during worship, the underlying conflict erupts somewhere.

The weeks ahead promise to be more complicated than the last few months. We are developing plans to move away from this situation and transition brings anxiety and conflict up from the locked closet in the basement.

This week someone reminded me of how "late" Jesus was when his dear friend Lazarus became sick. Lazarus was dead by the time Jesus got there. If Jesus had shown up when people thought he should, then the miracle of Lazarus' resurrection would not have happened. I cannot fix my Sunday morning stress, but I can try to be patient and trust God for the outcome.

This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it. John 11:4

Christmas Vacation

I'm out of town this week visiting with family for several days. My husband stayed home for work. I'm glad to be here and we're having a good time. It feels strange, though, like I'm disconnected from my self. Traveling with the kids is an ambitious project, and I become hyper-vigilant. The excitement of being with relatives, sleeping in a different place, setting aside our everyday routine is wildly fun until.... until it isn't.

I think all parents of young children know what I mean. Everybody is delightful and happy and giggly and cooperative until you blink your eyes and they are screaming and exhausted and completely illogical.

I am on alert, staying above a veneer of calm capability. I suspect that when the week is over I will be exhausted from the effort of this, but I cannot find a way to avoid it.

On occasion, I am reminded of the sadness that lies beneath. The other day someone asked me about my husband's work, and I described very generally how difficult things are for us. The conversation was less than ten minutes long, but I felt agitated after. Later, when I couldn't find the hat one of the kids needed, I was so distressed that I wanted to go to my room and cry.

Episodes like that make me feel crazy. I know they happen because I am trying to control things that are beyond me and am ignoring the emotional limitations of depression. I might need to a control-freak support group.

Christmas Debrief

Christmas was, in some ways, much better than I expected. There was a very content day when all the kids were home, my husband was around quite a bit, and everyone was glad to be together. I enjoyed that very much and was particularly thankful for it because contentment has become rare.

Christmas morning was weepy for me. The kids were excited and happy and I realized that I did not feel any of the particular excitement or pleasure I associate with the holiday. Being sad when I specifically expect to be happy is more miserable than the everyday sadness to which I've become accustomed.

I also didn't make it to church on Christmas Eve or Day. I had expected to, but in each case it just seemed too overwhelming to rally the kids and deal with the hubbub of a holiday worship service. Do other clergy families feel that way? I find Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter the most difficult times to go to church. It seems like everyone else is there en route to some sort of family event, while my husband is working and I am alone in the pew with three kids. I don't generally resent that this is my life, but I feel out of place at church on those days.

Moody

My depression has been spreading rumors about me. Last night it insisted that I am stupid, ineffective, irresponsible. I tried to yell it down and shame it with logic, but truth was only partially useful.

My three-year-old learned in Sunday school last week that "God is the biggest," and together we learned this verse: "The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save" (Zephaniah 3:17). God kept handing me that assurance last night, and I trust He is mighty enough to save me from my own self-abusing thoughts.

I was caught off guard by all that interior drama last night. I'd had a good day.

a.m.: Deliver happy child to school. Deliver remaining happy children to sitter's house. Visit with a friend.

p.m.: Spend a few hours at the library. An hour at home for dishes, one toilet scrub, and a short nap. Retrieve happy children from various activities. Husband home shortly after. Cook a simple, healthy dinner that is consumed with minimal whining.

later p.m.: Bedtime for kids. I retreat to dark bedroom. Lie still and concentrate on battle between rumor-mongering depression and truths I know about self. Tend to stuffy-nosed children who cannot get to sleep. Bemoan emotional state to husband.

I see no reason for the precipitous decline in my mood, except the darkness outside and my own fatigue. I sure can't do anything about the sun setting, and I can't do much about getting tired at the end of the day.

I've been advised to keep a mood chart. That is, to keep track of my mood at morning, noon, and night over a period of time to see if there's a pattern to the ups and downs. I'm not keen on this. What could be bad about gathering data, you ask? Mainly this: it involves agreeing that there is a problem about which data ought to be gathered. If I don't write it down, then one or two good days can make the moodiness seem like a distant, unimportant memory. Denial has proven an effective coping tool in the last couple of years, and I am loathe to cast it off.

Possibility

The deed is done. I am without children today. Another loving, responsible adult whom my children adore is now in charge of them two days each week. After two weeks of angsty deliberation, it turned out to be a pretty simple addition to an existing arrangement. I am a professional at overcomplicating my own life.

Today I am enjoying my independence. I can't decide whether I should use these days for whatever strikes my fancy, or try to be organized and accomplish something over the long term. I'd like to accomplish something that I can look at and feel pleased about about, but I don't want to create any additional stress. The point is to decompress and recharge for the remainder of the week.

The last time I remember feeling a clear, satisfying sense of accomplishment (this is embarrassing) is when I did back-to-school shopping for my son. There was a list, I made one trip to get everything on the list, and came home with bags full of stuff to show for it. I felt so pleased about that. There have been plenty of other shopping trips since, but one in an endless series of grocery lists and diaper runs does not provide the same sense of completion.

These Crazy Kids

This weekend did not go well for me with my children. Was it a full moon? They were insane people. Oldest has a serious case of I-want-it-my-way, which has come to seem manageable in the last few months. But not this weekend.

My dream of myself is: three screaming children, one stomping and lobbing toys across the room, and I laugh to myself at the absurdity of parenting. Then I calmly deal with each child. Later, it is all over, and I enjoy the peace and am quietly amused at the roller-coaster of my life.

Is that possible? Would that be a sign of a different kind of insanity?

The fly on my wall saw this: Mom hollering, throwing hands up in defense against flying objects, counting minutes until husband comes home, rolling eyes in exasperation, explaining sassiness to children, ineffectively threatening ten different consequences, finally announcing to children: "Today it is very hard to be your mom."

None of this is tragic for me or the kids, but the overall attitude does not help any of us. I've read good parenting advice that recommends, basically, avoiding emotional engagement with children who are acting crazy. It's a great plan, but containing the frustration is much more difficult than they let on.

Mapping, part 2

I'm starting to think about setting myself up with some substantial time for writing. That would probably mean arranging child care for a couple of days each week. Doesn't that sound lovely? It sounds amazing. It sounds like a schedule I could live with for a long time, with plenty of space to breathe and find out again about being me apart from people who depend on me. I picture it, and I can already see myself waking up on no-child-care days and feeling happy to be with my kids.

I also feel miserably unhappy and guilty every time I think of doing this. This is not what I planned! I expected to put professional work & writing on hold until our youngest goes to school. When we became parents, I imagined that I had the personality and interest to take the stay-at-home route.

And here's a strange little gem I found wedged in the base of my brain: "If I were a good mom, I would set aside my needs and make parenting decisions based only on what seems to be best for the children."

I know that's unwise and I can argue against every point.

• "If I were". I don't apply this guideline to anyone else I know. If a friend described this scenario to me, I'd tell her it's a completely unreasonable expectation.
• "a good mom". There is not one m.o. for "good mom." Good moms/dads approach parenting many different ways.
• "I would set aside my needs". It's not helpful to my kids to grow up thinking Mom is a robot. Surely it contributes to becoming compassionate when kids learn to accommodate their parents as equally important members of the family.
• "and make parenting decisions". This isn't just a parenting decision, it's a family decision, a who-am-I? decision. It affects everyone in the house.
• "based only on what seems to be best for the children". There are many facets of what's good for children, and surely having parents who are not depressed (even reasonably content?) would be one.

Deconstructing a misguided notion is helpful, but this one is very firmly rooted. It's clearly been there for a long time and I've never even seen it before. Actually digging it out so I can think of arranging child care without sobbing might take a while.

Mapping My Route

This post is going to be a two-parter. I’m afraid I’d lose all of you if I try to explain this all in one day.

For several months, I have attributed my depression entirely to the unpleasantness (to put it mildly) of Husband’s current call. Now I suspect I was wandering toward a cliff and this church thing pushed me over the edge. Now I’m trying to draw a narrative map of how I got to the house of depression.

Before we moved here, we lived in a small community, where we’d been for several years. We moved there before we had children, and had a well-developed social support system. By the time we were raising three very young children, I had many resources to help me. I had several friends who were also parenting multiple young children, and we could get together and share the load for a while. We were blessed to have dear friends who happily took over from time to time. My relationships in our congregation were considerably more substantial than they are here. When parishioners saw me, most of them had some thought other than “There goes the pastor’s wife with all those kids.” Although I was at home full-time with my kids, my identity did not seem entirely wrapped into theirs.

Then we moved. Moving adds a few bricks to the pile. I was ready for it. Like all families of seminary graduates, we did our fair share of moving and knew to expect a long stretch of adjustment and loneliness. We had not, however, moved with small children. That’s considerably more complicated. I did not figure out how to make friends, how to ask for the help I needed, how to feel connected in a new congregation when I was always chasing little runners. The load was heavier, and I didn’t share it much with anyone but my sweet husband.

Then the situation at church overwhelmed Husband. He couldn’t do much to support me and I added tremendous anxiety about his health and well-being, and vast amounts of energy trying to rescue him. (Misguided efforts, but I made them.)

I have struggled with the feeling that parenting did me in. I do not want to believe that I am not able to parent my children without becoming depressed. But now I’m beginning to think that parenting in a supportive community was about as much stress as I could live with over the long-term, and the additional stresses and reduced supports that accompanied our move were too much.

Now I’m trying to see how to map the near future. The atmosphere of my life is much improved, but the grinding monotony of waking up to my children—and not much else—every day is not working out well for me.

Motherhood

“The world is full of women blindsided by the unceasing demands of motherhood, still flabbergasted by how a job can be terrific and torturous.” Anna Quindlen

I was so reassured to read this. Quindlen describes exactly what I feel and promises that I am not the only one.

God has doused me with this kind of encouragement lately. My mom visited recently, for the primary purpose of helping me and giving me a couple of days away from home. The first evening she was here, we took all three kids for a walk after dinner. Said “walk” involved three children using three different modes of transportation and moving at three distinct paces. We went about ¼ mile in 30 minutes, and Mom and I spent most of that time chasing, cajoling, pushing, rescuing, or hollering.

When we got home Mom said the kindest words possible at that moment: “It’s certainly intense being with them. I can see why you need a little time away.”

I’ve also joined a Bible study group for moms. The group is not at my church, which is all the better because there I am not “the pastor’s wife.” One goal of the curriculum seems to be assuring moms that feeling tired or inadequate is to be expected, and sitting in a room full of women who laugh at the same mom-mistakes-I’ve-made jokes is a very effective way to adjust my sense of what’s normal.

It is a constant battle for me to distinguish between personal failure and symptoms of depression. Most of the signs of depression – fatigue, short-sightedness, ineffectiveness, a steady flow of guilt – look to me a lot like irresponsibility.

Big Question

How can my children be both a primary purpose in my life, bright shining lights of joy, meaning, and intimate connection AND a force of mom destruction?

Vacation, Part 2

Vacation was awesome. A week of waking up with nothing more important to decide than “What fun thing should we do today?” The weather was nearly perfect and the kids were so funny and happy and sweet. Each of them did and said countless cute things every day. Our littlest woke up one morning, looked at me, and declared, “I wike Mom.”

It’s good to be wiked.

Even with all this wonderfulness, I did not feel entirely at ease. I had crazy dreams every night, on the order of this: I am a student in a class on a subject I cannot identify. The teacher explains the major project of the course, and I understand none of it. I can’t even figure out which handouts I’m supposed to take.

When Husband and I went away for a few days this summer on our own, I felt 100% relieved of anxiety and sadness. From this difference, I deduce that if my kids are with me, responsibility is with me. There might be plenty of fun and pleasure, but it is not a vacation from work. Kids need to get dressed, eat, be supervised, be coached through tantrums, put to bed.

Sometimes this seems entirely logical: I am a stay-at-home mom, and I need time off from the job of “mom”. Sometimes it makes me feel like a jerk: how can I not love to be with my funny, adorable, smart children? My feelings do not respond readily to logic.

Burden of Thoughtfulness

I tend toward thoughtfulness under normal circumstances. I like to think about the world in the abstract. Why do people behave the way they do? What influences us? What shapes our attitudes and expectations? This week I took it as a sign of well-being that I was able to read an essay on the plasticity of the human body in postmodern culture. Sometimes, however, this pattern of abstracted thoughtfulness is annoying. It can be hard for me to feel when I am preoccupied with analysis.

The thoughtfulness that attends my current mental and emotional state is something different. It is profoundly self-centered and much more difficult to escape. This thoughtfulness is not detached from feeling, but actually produces very intense feelings. I can think about myself and swirl around in my moroseness for a long time.

I have, by long habit, become accustomed to attending closely to what other people need. Parenting three children affirms that habit, since they require me to put their needs above mine several hours a day. Being a woman, a pastor’s wife, a person who likes to think herself independent and compassionate: these all reinforce possibly excessive other-centeredness. It is shameful to me that I have swung the other direction entirely. Right now, sustaining attention to someone else’s needs is exhausting.

Maybe the burden is not thoughtfulness so much as self-centeredness. It’s like I’m on a teeter-totter and want to get to the balanced spot where I have the humility to recognize both my needs and other’s needs, but so far I’ve been all teeter or all totter.

Depletion

One of the first changes I noticed in myself over the last year was withdrawal. As my sense of anxiety and urgency about my family’s well-being intensified, I devoted less energy to caring for my friends and extended family. I called infrequently; found it difficult to make plans with anyone; was timid about conversation with new acquaintances.

Now I see that was an early indication that my emotional resources were being depleted. After my husband took medical leave, and I spent two weeks hunkered down alone at home with the kids, crying, I have not yet gotten back to “normal”.

A couple of months into his leave, I realized I was an open faucet of caretaking energy. I’d been caring for the children and making crazy efforts to rescue my husband from his steady descent. In the process, I’d pretty well cut myself off from anyone who would pour energy into me.

In the last few months, I’ve learned that limited emotional energy is a standard-issue symptom of depression. I suspect this may be causing confusion among some of the leaders in our congregation. My husband is animated and energetic at work, and certainly on Sunday mornings. His sermons are as creative and thoughtful as ever. They can’t *see* his depression. I wonder if they feel like his medical leave was a kind of vacation.

We sure feel the energy depletion. Yesterday I woke up exhausted, ready to stay in bed. Watching my husband leave for work is a stressful time for me. We don’t commiserate about it, but I know it is hard for him to go and I wish I could protect him. And then it’s just me and the kids.

I decided we ought to go to the grocery store, so I packed away my fatigue and focused on the task. Make a list. Chat with the kids about meal ideas. Pack a bag, discuss the plan for making it through the store with all three kids. I forgot my shopping list, but remembered all the important items and had a pleasant trip with pretty well-behaved kids.

Then we got home, and I was done. I put on a cartoon for them and went to bed for twenty minutes. I could not handle another minute with them right then.

That is maddening for me. I can focus for a little while and go on with what I need to do, but the rope runs out quickly, and then I collapse. This is hard for other people to understand because no one else sees it. Even when I talk to a friend on the phone, I generally sound well because I’m focused on the conversation. But afterwards I will likely sit alone for a few minutes before I can start something else.

I don’t know what to do about this disconnect between what others see and how we feel. People are too polite to ask, and we are too polite to mope around in public. I carry this with me, and try to think of it when I see someone else behaving in a way that seems odd to me. I remind myself that I have no idea what their life is really like.

What Helps

It is hard for me to imagine why people want to read this stuff. It seems to me that my lamentations would get tiresome pretty quickly if you weren’t me. Actually, I’m pretty tired of them myself.

So I’ll try for something with a spark of hopefulness.

Here are some things that help me. I wouldn’t say they always make me happy, but they keep me in the boat with my lifejacket on.

• Talking. Lots and lots of talking. This is hard for me because I am Capable! Competent! Dignified and reserved (repressed?)! I fear being needy or whiny.


• Writing. I seem to be one of those strange birds who, in most contexts, communicate feelings more fully and freely in writing than in face-to-face conversation. That’s how the blog came to be. I didn’t imagine many people would actually read it.


• Leaving the house. Fear of human interaction and lethargy are serious problems. Most things seem better once I’m out the door.


• Leaving town. This is the best. Going out of town, preferably without my children, gives my heart a rest. My stress and sadness have a geographic location.


• Noticing God’s grace. I am apt to feel God has turned away from us. There are so many things I think He should be doing that He is not. I’ve offered my list, but you know how that goes. If I think to look, there is always a sign that He is caring for us. Yesterday was a magnificently crummy day, but my husband and I both received particular notes of encouragement from special folks. Thank You, God.


• Respite care for my kids. I love ‘em, but they are selfish little people. Empathy for Mom is precious but short-lived. Some days start out looking impossible, and then I remember my friend is coming to watch the kids for the morning and instantly I feel like I’ll make it through the day.