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)

When Church Makes You Crazy: 5 Strategies

We spent a couple of years at a church that literally made me crazy. The church leaders abused my husband and I felt scared every time I went in the building. The stress of that situation caused an episode of clinical depression that persisted until we moved away.

While we were there, I found a few strategies to help me cope with the situation. Mostly I wanted to never go to or think about that church, but I felt that I had a few obligations as the pastor's wife:

1. Attend worship most weeks.
2. Bring my children to Sunday school. (This one had more to do with stability for my children than obligations to the church.)
3. Speak kindly always. Speak of church politics as little as possible.

Given those parameters, I found about five things I could do that helped. I'll tell you about one of them today and describe the others during the rest of the week.

Coping Strategy #1: Worship Elsewhere. I went to our church on Sunday mornings because I believe it can be confusing and discouraging for the congregation if the pastor's wife never attends. I barely considered it "worship" in the true sense. I didn't hear the senior pastor's sermons as messages from God but as reminders of his duplicity. Every hymn and prayer was clouded by my stress and anxiety.

I visited other churches as I was able, usually on a weeknight. It was such a relief to sit in the pew and feel like I had some privacy with God. Even in a happy church I feel self-conscious about being the woman everyone can identify.

Eventually I built a relationship with a nearby church (I'll call it "Bridge Church") where I attended a weekday Bible study and made a few friends. During the months after my husband had left our last church and before he took the call to our current church, we attended Bridge Church. In retrospect, I would say that was an important part of my re-learning how to feel safe at church. I think most of our friends at Bridge Church knew something had gone terribly wrong for us. I never felt judged, no one ever pried into details. We were welcomed, hugged, made to feel loved and valued.

The pastor at Bridge Church advised me to "do nothing." He told me we needed time to heal and to receive love and care with no obligations. He was right about that and it was a precious gift.

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.

Gaaaahhhh!

It has a been a rough week. I had a chemo treatment a week ago and am starting to feel like I'm just crummy all the time. I have these stupid side-effects with me every day, like so many yippy dogs nipping my ankles and barking that it's-not-even-a-bark little noise. They won't do any permanent damage but they can irritate the bejeebers out of me.

Meanwhile, Husband is having a rough go. I think he hoped (as did I!) that moving away from our old congregation would provide nearly instant relief from the pain we felt there. It didn't. It's starting to look like we might need to organize our entire lives around getting well for a few months. I'm physically ill, he's emotionally/spiritually ill. It's very, very, very hard to acknowledge that we are profoundly limited right now.

I happened upon a little book about cancer and skimmed it for interesting bits. The author described someone's experience with cancer and noted that he thinks "toxic stress" in the patient's life contributed to the development of cancer.

I'm pretty sure the author is not a physician, and I think he's just musing there, but it planted the idea in my mind that perhaps I would not have developed cancer if I'd not been under severe stress. That is, "Did sr. pastor give me cancer?"

Gaaaaahhhhhh!

Of course I have no idea and it's kind of a stupid thing to ponder, but every few weeks I discover new layers of anger over his incredibly, stunningly self-centered behavior. I had so few conversations with him and all of them were about him. What is that? How does that happen? Someone told me that the definition of narcissism is thinking that everything you say or do is right because you are the one saying or doing it. I cannot fathom seeing the world that way.

Distressing Dreams

Last week I had a steady stream of weird, vivid dreams. The first two had to do with my children being in danger and I could not protect them (in the first of the two, I knew we were all going to be brainwashed).

Then I dreamt something involving me in Alaska on a trip with wolves, sleds, and overnight camping in the middle of winter. I like camping, but not in the winter. I'm not interested in a personal relationship with a wolf.

The most recent was a long episode of some people trying to burn down my house. They were kind of mellow about it - turning on my oven, lighting small fires around the house, trying to start a bonfire on the roof. I followed them around putting out the fires and trying to talk them out of arson. It occurred to me to call 911, but I thought the fire dept. would be annoyed that I called for help before there was a really big fire.

I've decided that those dreams involving my children are residual anxiety about the congregation we just left. Everything about our current situation seems good and safe for my kids.

The other two, in which I seem to be taking on challenges above my pay level and delay asking for help... well, that's me in a nutshell. I have become pretty adept at asking for help these days because I must. It's the same reason I wound up talking to a therapist and a pastor in the last couple of years. The pain in my life was too much to bear and I had to get help somewhere.

I have a long habit of imagining that people will think poorly of me if I ask for help. I imagine other people thinking that I should be able to handle things on my own. I can't think of a time when that has actually happened, but real life and my expectations are taking a long time to meet.

I've also noticed that I picture myself requesting/accepting help from now until I finish chemotherapy. Then, I tell myself, I will be well and whole and energetic and independent and help other people. I hope that most of the above will be true, but I also hope that I can sustain my willingness to ask for help when I can use it.

En Garde!

I am drowning in offers of help.

Is it ok to consider that challenging?

My life is entirely too much for me these days. My life has been too much for me for a long time now. I mentioned briefly in one post that I have cancer. I recently began a six-month course of chemotherapy. For some reason, being diagnosed with cancer and hearing I needed chemo did not knock me off balance. It seemed of a piece with depression - another long, ugly illness that will be resolved eventually.

Now that we have moved and I've started treatment, I am losing my balance. The move is, big picture, great for our family. In the short term it is incredibly stressful. Everything is new, we have no routine, the kids are excited and confused and uncertain. The chemotherapy is an enormous wrench in the gears of trying to get settled. The primary side effect for me so far is severe fatigue. It looks like I'll be alternating good week/crummy week for a few months.

When someone loving and capable offers to help, I am confident that God loves me and is going to provide what we need to get through this. I also wonder if I am going to pay for it later.

What I need most is help with my children. A stunning number of people in our new congregation have offered to spend time with the kids while I cope with treatments. I am sifting through the offers. A few people appear very needy themselves, so I smile, thank them for the generous offer, and never call for help. Almost everyone else seems fine, but there are so many ways that inviting virtual strangers into the intimate connection of caring for my children can become awkward. Do they expect a "special" connection with the pastor's family? If I ask for help once, will it be offensive if I do not ask again?

I am in no position to return any favors. Not only do I need substantial tangible help, but I lack the emotional energy to tend to other people's needs with any depth or consistency. I am in a tunnel of my own family's needs.

We all depend on God's grace at all times, but that dependence is not always evident in our everyday lives. Right now, my dependence on grace is acute. It makes me feel fragile, exposed. I trust God. I'm not so sure about His people.

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.