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.

Flashbacks

Hi again! I stopped writing for a few months because I didn't feel compelled. This is mostly a diary for me and you get to read along. I need my diary again today.

Dear diary,

Today -- and for the last few weeks -- I've been having flashbacks of the two miserable years we spent at our last church. I've had weird little run-ins with people I associate with that time and seeing them brings back vivid episodes of dysfunction.

This morning my husband mentioned talking to some people from that church and I almost immediately became morose. By the time he'd left for work and my oldest was on the school bus, I could feel the dark mood closing in. I felt an intense urge to eat, cry, or go to bed and sleep all day.

Thank God for the mental wellness to see that and to find an alternative. I called a friend and asked to spend the morning at her house. My two younger kids and I went there and by lunchtime I was good as new. The mood had passed. The rest of the day was balanced and pleasant.

What a distressing bout of crankpot-ism. We've been gone nearly a year and I hardly think of that place or those people anymore. The shape of my life has much to do with what happened there and I've (mostly) accepted that. I have not accepted the emotional intensity those memories still hold.

Boo.

Time to Myself!

Last Saturday you all patiently endured my lament about needing to get away from my peeps (aka children). This week has been MUCH better. Everyone went to school on all the appointed days, which means I had a couple of hours alone on each of THREE separate days. Today I've been out of the house on my own for most of the day. I am feeling much better. Thanks for your encouragement.

I also had to go see another doctor this week. Nothing bad - I'm following the prescribed path. I needed to see another specialist who will do the necessary tests to be sure that the cancer is all gone. I was surprised by how distressing the visit was. When I tried to schedule the procedure - which requires some anesthesia, so I can't drive myself, so my husband needs to come with me, so someone else needs to take care of the kids, so on and so forth for ever and ever amen - I fell to pieces.

When I finished chemo I'd started thinking that we were done. I'm realizing now that "done" is not a useful concept in my life. If I pass this test, which I fully expect to do, there will be another next year. And the next year. For the next 2-3 years I am at the highest risk for recurrence. For 5 years I will continue to see the oncologist. I'm sure the anxiety will wane, but right now that seems like a long time.

God is much less attached to closure than I am.

Authentic and Awkward

Our church has been praying for me every week during my chemotherapy. I am thankful for their prayers on my behalf, though it has been uncomfortable to see my name on the prayer list every week for as long as we've been here. I feel like I get so much attention just because I'm married to the pastor that I don't need any more.

On Sunday the prayer was altered to thanksgiving that the treatments are done. Lots of people spoke to me afterward to express their happiness for me. I was asked several times, usually with a mood of eager optimism, how I am feeling.

You'd think that would be a simple question. A year or two ago I'd have told all those kind people that I'm feeling much better, thank you. They all want so much for me to be well, for my life to be happy. I'd hate to disappoint them.

I'm trying to teach myself to be considerately honest and sometimes that's uncomfortable. When people asked how I'm feeling I told them I'm relieved to be done, but I don't feel very well.

Every time I felt a little like I was hurting their feelings. We'd have a very brief awkward moment in which we all took in the disappointment that happiness and ease has not yet arrived and then we'd part.

Being honest is awkward. We are all in a hurry to be done with pain and living alongside other people's sadness is hard. It is also much more helpful to all of us than polite lies. Now those people know me a little bit.

A Place of Mercy and Grace

The pastor who preached at my husband's installation is familiar with the miserable situation out of which we came. After the service we spoke briefly and he assured me that there would be challenges at this new congregation, "but I pray this will be a place of mercy and grace for you."

I think of that often. So far it seems to be so. The general mood of the place seems to be confidence in God's work among and through the congregation.

A couple of weeks ago we had a visiting pastor. His sermon referenced the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector from Luke chapter 18:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

How often, in our last congregation, I felt like the tax collector! It's strange for me to say, since I grew up attending church and have, as far as anyone else could tell, a well-behaved life. But there I constantly felt inadequate.

The tone of the sr. pastor's sermons, conversations, aspirations for the congregation seemed to be that the members of our church were set apart, closer to God than others. I would not have been surprised to hear him say in a sermon, "God, I thank you that the people of this congregation are not like other people. We follow your laws and deserve your attention. Help us make other people more like us."

It sounds so appalling that you'd think some among us could have rioted, but in practice it is insidious. It happens gradually, it's hard to identify exactly what's going on, and then one day you wake up and realize you feel less than. Less good than other people in your church. Less obedient. Less worthy of any blessings.

Being now in a congregation that, to my eyes, seems loving and merciful and humble causes me a different kind of pain. I am ever more aware of how lacking mercy and humility our last congregation was. I grieve for the years we spent there and for the dear people who might be misled by what is happening there.

This Old House

Stopped by our old house today to check on things and it was like a torture session. The house looks fantastic. It smells good. If I saw it now I would definitely buy it again. Too bad no one has requested a showing in the three months it's been listed. All that loveliness for no one. And we're still paying the mortgage.

It's creepy to me to visit our old neighborhood. In some ways, I was so content with it. I liked our neighborhood and our house and our neighbors. The few years we lived there were also the most painful, oppressive years of my life so far. Poor house. I will probably never think of it fondly. More like an attractive prison.

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.