Category Archives: Living

Identity, Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health

Maybe

At the beginning of May, I set out on a mental health mission.  May being Mental Health Month, I wanted to dedicate a daily post to a condition of, treatment for, and/or living with mental illness.  While my life is influenced by my own struggle with depression, and all of my posts are therefore colored by it, I wanted these series of posts to address mental illness and health dead on.  And with the exception of one day, I did it!  And learned some interesting things in the process.

What a month of blogging about mental illness and health will teach you:

  • Focusing on your depression and what it does to you everyday makes you even more depressed
  • I may have exhausted not only myself, but also those around me.
  • Daily blogging (I had previously blogged approximately two times a week) made this ‘stay-at-home mom’ feel like I had a purpose, a vocation, a “real” job.  I had set that schedule for myself and had to stick to it.  I made writing – something I truly enjoy – a priority.
  • Daily blogging made my house look like a pit.  Making my writing a priority pushed nearly everything else to the wayside.
  • I need to work on time management 😉
  • If you write it, they will come – eventually
  • There are a lot of super-supportive people who write incredibly thoughtful comments.
  • ‘I feel your pain’, though overused, is not a pile of horseshit.  It is extremely powerful to connect with someone who has, indeed, felt your pain.
  • That I over-catastrophize (yes, I may be making up words again).  I missed one day in my blog-a-day-a-month challenge and a bushel basket of chopped potatoes did not come crashing down upon my head.
  • That given the chance to slack, I will.  June 1 rolled around and I let the rest of life come rushing back in.
  • That, sometimes to a fault, I engage both sides of an argument, an issue, etc.  I’m forever writing that big pro/con list in the sky, which may make me come across as wishy-washy, fickle, not knowing my @## from my elbow (compare the two previous points!)
  • That achieving balance is to continually adjust on the tightrope of life.  Urgh.
  • That telling your deepest, darkest fears and foibles makes you incredibly vulnerable – or at least feeling that way.
  • That people like to know they’re not the only one feeling that way.
  • That one month of posts is not enough to explore all there is to know about mental health and illness.
  • That although I started the month of May thinking these posts would be a departure from my usual in that they directly addressed mental health and illness, there really is no separating out depression from everyday life.  It’s the constant mantle on our shoulders, sometimes blowing lightly in the wind, sometimes soaking wet with rain.

So, now it’s back to operation ‘normal’, whatever the hell that is.  I did miss writing about my crazy adventures and travails as a mom.  I did miss writing something “positive” or life affirming (I tried during May, but felt like most of it was heavy).  I’ll be glad to write something that doesn’t make you think I loathe my children and the life I lead.  But I guess I won’t be giving up writing about mental health and illness; that is woven into the fiber of my being for better or worse.  Maybe I’m finally learning to live with that.

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Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health

An Imperfect Porpoise

Balance.

The very word makes me twitch.

It’s supposed to be peaceful, magical, that neutral territory where the heart sings and your psyche lies in savasana.

That is, if you can attain it.

I’m forever striving.  I want to show that boulder who’s boss, shoving it up the mountain for good.  But if it doesn’t roll back over me on its way back down, it’s got so much momentum it just goes over the other side.

I lamented to my therapist that I just want to conquer depression.  I want to beat it into submission and be done with it.  I like closure.

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Depression is not an open-close case.  It is full of decisions and appeals, a juggernaut of self-imposed juries.

For every bright spot, there is a chance of dark days.  For every low point, there is an arc of highs.  And sometimes it’s all over the road like a reading of the Richter scale.

Unfortunately (or not), this same concept applies to life.

Whether I like it or not, I have to take the good with the bad, the ups with the downs, the victories with defeat.

While Sisyphus has been the poster-child of my life as of late, a friend tried to introduce me to someone new. She said,

Here’s to imperfect progress–a gradual improvement of mood and attitude despite life’s natural ups and downs.

I’m trying to frame this in terms of my buddy Sisy and his vertical hangout.  I can’t.  A long, gradual slope comes to mind, maybe strewn with boulders along the way.  Or maybe it’s like that part of the trail where you hit the tree line and think the summit is just over the next hump, but it stretches on and on and up and up.  The view improves, but the trek is still arduous.

Rolling this new idea of imperfect progress around in my head, the words transmuted themselves into ‘an imperfect porpoise’, which not only made me laugh, but kind of fits.  I’m happy, but I don’t chirp like Flipper; can’t.  Some days I flit about the surface, skimming the waves, others I plunge into the depths.  And all the time, I like to turn words and things on their heads and see what comes about.  Porpoises are intelligent; I wonder if they over think things as much as I do.

What IS the porpoise of life, anyway?

What IS the porpoise of life, anyway?

“An Imperfect Porpoise” is my modern-day myth.  It is about the ever-elusive balance.  The disgruntled admission that this is what I need to seek, rather than domination or perfection.  And maybe that a moving target has less chance of being flattened by a boulder ;-).  Hey, old habits die hard.  This new guy and I are just getting acquainted.  Sisy and I go way back.  This whole life is imperfect anyway, right?

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Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health

Patate Pazze

Crazy potatoes.

I found the recipe for this dish, a Campomelano classic, in A Year in the Village of Eternity: The Lifestyle of Longevity in Campodimele, Italy by Tracey Lawson.

I thought, how ironic, the name of this dish, given that it was potatoes that nearly made me go crazy.  Now there’s a food ripe with metaphor.  How witty, how clever I am.

Then I went back and read the entire chapter in which this recipe is featured: The Mountain Gives You Everything.  Lawson explains that it’s a phrase uttered over and over by the residents of this mountainous Italian village, meaning, “in every moment, in every season, the mountain provides all the things you really need; the very essentials of life.”

And just like that my metaphor switched from potato to mountain.

Do I need the crazy potatoes dug up from the earth of the mountain?  No.

Were they there, ripe for the harvest?  Yes.

And when did they become crazy?  When mixed with the greens and grasses that also occur naturally on my mountain.

“Seek and the mountain will give,” says Lawson; to which an aged resident says, “You just need to know where to look.”

But Lawson also stresses that “it’s really a question of knowing how to look.”

I think that potatoes popping up all over the fields of our lives crowd out our ability to look.  Add the wild greens of distraction, stress, and overwhelming life events sprouting up wherever they may and often spreading like wildfire – and it’s a recipe for disaster.

But the wild greens boiled with the potatoes for patate pazze, are used “to flavour potatoes which may be past their best after more than six months languishing in the cantina.”

Did I not respond well to the stresses of my life because I was already languishing?

Or were they sent to me to add some dimension to my life, stir things up, a zesty flavor to respond to?

In any event, I may have found a way around my abhorrence for chopping potatoes.  This recipe calls for boiling the potatoes in their skins, slipping them out once cooked, and then slicing them, which would no doubt be much easier than chopping them raw – no matter how many cranky kids circle my feet.  I’m willing to take whatever the mountain will give.

 

All quotes and references come from the following:

9781596915022Lawson, Tracey.  A Year in the Village of Eternity: The Lifestyle of Longevity in Campodimele, Italy.  New York: Bloomsbury, 2011.

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Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health, Recovery

Getting from “I can’t” to “I’ve GOT this”

“We have to let go of what the world wants us to hang onto and hold onto what the world wants us to let go of.”

The wise deacon who gave the homily this Sunday morning spoke these words.
But how do we operate within this paradox?
Why is it always about balance?
How much of it is our attitude and how much is our chemical make-up?
What miracles will ‘heal’ us if we believe?
This post raised similar questions.

Admin's avatarOff Duty Mom

I have struggled for most of my adult life with borderline depression and probably a little anxiety, too.  These things, however, have not existed in real life like I would have imagined they would.

cryingI had previously figured that depression was reserved for people who had SOMETHING to be sad about.  And those poor saps wouldn’t be able to get out of bed each morning.  They would cry constantly.  They would probably resort to maniacal meth usage, would wear all-black and would get swoopy haircuts, but would ultimately not really wash or style their hair much, anyway.

I figured that people who had anxiety would be nervous wrecks 100% of the time, would talk really fast, drink too much coffee, talk incessantly about governmental conspiracy theories, and would be all twitchy and weird.

Most of that stuff is dead wrong.  For me, at least.  Except, I could get into a…

View original post 696 more words

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anxiety, Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health

Entropy

I used to like you.

You were a concept I thought was rebellious, unique in its dysfunction.

I scribbled your name on the brown paper bag book cover of my science book.

I joked how my life was a measure of entropy.

I didn’t know that my worst day of stress or ill-preparedness back then was a cakewalk compared to now.

While entropy is supposed to be unpredictable, I can feel myself slipping into it.  That detached feeling while everything swirls around me.  Worries, permission slips, due dates, appointments, a specific pair of pants to be washed, thoughts, concerns, shopping lists, stresses.  I cringe as I await the fallout.  The important detail missed.  The distractedness in me leading to some major misstep.  I know it’s coming.  I know it’s only a matter of time.  I dread it.  It makes me sick.  Makes me feel like I need a keeper.  Yet I can’t stop the feeling, can’t prevent the catastrophe.

It’s only after the catastrophe that I am emptied – of the dread, the worry.  Only to be filled with sorrow, regret, and guilt.  Ashamed that I scraped the side of my car along the opening of the garage as I pulled in.  Mortified that the bus driver awaited my return at the foot of my driveway; that my children had to wonder where I was.  Weak with worry that I could do something so stupid.  And it’s in that low place that I determine such a scenario will never occur again.

And for a while, I am good.  I dial back the enthusiasm when scheduling things.  I plan ahead.  I try to allow for more time than I optimistically think I need.

But slowly, slowly I forget that ‘limp as a dishrag’ feeling following the sick rush of adrenaline and life ratchets up again.

exergy_tube

Is it like the volcano that releases all its pressure with an eruption and then lies dormant again?

Do I push and push and push until my psyche can’t take it anymore and I get set back to the starting block – only to do it all over again?

Sisyphus has been bounding around in my head a lot lately.  A friend pointed out that any upward or forward motion is good – even if it doesn’t result in reaching the summit.  I need to explore these ideas.  Because a whole lot of $#!7 keeps hitting the fan and it keeps on spinning.

Entropy is not my friend anymore.  Chaos is not anti-establishment.  It is insanity.  I know there will always be a measure of ‘can-go-wrong’ness in my life, in anyone’s, but I can’t let it build to the boiling point at set intervals if I want to live a peaceful life.

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anxiety, Identity, Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health, postpartum depression

The Blue Chicken or the Anxiety Egg?

Which came first? DownloadedFile

It’s the proverbial question.

Did my anxiety beget my depression?  Or am I worried how things will turn out because of my depression?

Worry-wort.  My own worst enemy.  Always running things through my head.  So sensitive.  Beating a dead horse.  All of these are terms used to describe me at one time or another.

I do have a tendency to perseverate.  I can’t let things go.  I worry them like a dog with a bone that is impervious to bite marks.  It’s not productive.  It’s not reassuring.  It’s a form of torment actually.

In college, after my roommate had left for the weekend, I would lie on my top bunk and stare out the window, wondering why I couldn’t go out and round up new friends as easily as everyone else seemed to be doing.  I would watch the sun set, thinking how alone I was.

As August neared its end one year, I bought a thin volume entitled, Why Are You Worrying?  As the cashier plugged my purchase into the register, he asked, “Are you a teacher?’  He said he’d bought the same book at the start of a school year once too.  While he may have bought the book for the same reasons I did, no self-help book could help me turn off the worry.  I triangulated every possible scenario in the classroom; how I would put out fires, cut off conflicts at the knees before they stood up, squash rebellion before it started.  But you can’t plan for every permutation.  The very nature of education is the X factor.

And this nervous nature – is that what plunged me into depression when life became so overwhelming as a mother of three?  I couldn’t control anything, didn’t understand and couldn’t fix the feelings I was having, and felt really crappy as a result.

Or is it viewing life through the dark glasses of depression that makes me see the shadows of worry in every corner?

It’s all tumbled together in the dryer at the highest setting anyway.

The only ‘good’ thing about all of it is that what I thought was a flaw on my part, a weakness, an inability to achieve, connect, push myself, believe in myself, is really anxiety.  I’m not this wimpy, pathetic, sad sack.  I have an excuse!  A reason, a rationalization, a disease.  Good for me!

So chicken or egg – it’s all part of the cycle of life.  All I can do is try not to get scrambled.

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anxiety, Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health

Self-Aware

Has a massage ever brought you to tears?

Tears that spring out of nowhere at the release of tension you didn’t even know you had.

The line between physical and psychic stress often blurs.

We often operate at such a high level of continuous stress that it doesn’t even register unless we disturb the flow.

A few months ago, my father and I attended Tai Chi classes.  It was something he had wanted to try for quite some time.  I found a class offered at the community center in my town and we went.  I was used to the gentle flow of yoga, which the instructor told me is a cousin to Tai Chi, but this required an even higher level of calm and restraint.  With my high-strung, perpetually-on-a-treadmill ways, it was a stretch of a different kind.  I told myself to slow down as my cloud hands swept across the room, but it was something long since foreign to my body.

At one of the sessions, our teacher led us through a meditation we’d never done before.  I didn’t know how relaxed I could get without lying prostrate on the floor, but I dutifully took my breaths and moved my hands – and started to cry.

It was not a bad day.  I did not feel overly stressed, anxious, or upset.  And yet, once I allowed my body and mind to slow, the pressure slack, the excess overflowed.

I wanted to kiss this little old lady for releasing my five elements.

But I need to channel my own little old lady.  I cannot look outside for inner contentment.  I must make the time to stretch in the morning, to adjust my posture, to make a mental scan of my body and release the tension.

I need to be more self-aware and body-aware so that a small chink in the dam doesn’t lead to a crazy rush of water I didn’t even know was collecting.  It shouldn’t take a breach to make me notice the physical, mental, and emotional stress I’m holding.

My mental and physical health should be about maintenance, not damage control.

meditation

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Living, May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health, motherhood, postpartum depression, Recovery

Wisdom in a Cup of Tea

My friend is always sending me notes saying she wishes we could share a cup of tea.  Or she’ll e-mail and say we need to schedule a phone call with a simultaneous cup of tea.  She’s someone who would darken my door every afternoon for tea and sympathy if I weren’t in her kitchen first.  If she didn’t live 585.9 miles away that is.

When we met in a charming seaside town midway between our homes for a spa weekend well into my third pregnancy, she said nothing of the fact that I couldn’t relax, that I was cynical, that something seemed ‘off’.  Instead, she gave me a mug to celebrate the impending addition to my family that said, “For this child I have prayed.”  When I told her what a sham I felt like because I hadn’t prayed for this child; that [she] had been gifted to me undeservingly, she said, ‘well, you’re going to pray for her now and when [she]’s here, aren’t you?’  So matter-of-fact, so trusting, so unfailing in her regard for me as a person, a mother.

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And when that something stayed ‘off’ far past labor and delivery, she gently and honestly broke the news to me, a headline I’d written but couldn’t read.  She’d been featured in a similar newsreel only a short time earlier.  She knew the signs, saw the struggles that someone who hadn’t been through them might have missed.  I gave her a firsthand account of postpartum depression without knowing what I was describing.  She saw herself in me.

And she saved me.

She listened to the horrible thoughts I couldn’t share with anyone else for fear they’d find out what a despicable mother I was.  She became a sounding board for all the worries running through my head.  She was my font of information on all things postpartum.  It was she who finally convinced me I needed to get help.  It was she who urged me to remove the stigma I’d attached to medication.  It was she who helped me see I wasn’t the only one who’d ever felt like a failure as a mother, a weak human being, a seriously flawed individual clinging to the sharp edge of a cliff.

Still, I fought her for a good part of the way.  I didn’t want to see myself in the mirror she was holding up to me.  I didn’t want the help she offered because it meant giving in.

But she didn’t give up on me.

She told me the things I didn’t want to hear – and kept doing so until I listened – because she wanted to help me.  She forced me to get the help I needed.  She didn’t want to see me suffer the same fate she did; she loved me so much, she wanted to shield me from it.

Like every child needs a trusted adult, so every one of us needs a confidant, a friend in shining armor; in my case, a faithful warrior, devoted to the cause of saving my soul and that of my family.  Someone who won’t give up on you even when you turn away because she’s showing you the dark side of yourself – even if you take it out on her.  Someone who sees it through to the bitter end of your acceptance and seeking of help, the start of your journey to healing.  Someone who uses her own empathic experience to lovingly see you through the darkest days of yours.

They talk about warrior moms.  Moms who fight for their children, their needs, their causes.  Moms who fight for themselves and their survival.  There are moms who fight for those who stand beside them, who pick them up when they fall, who drag them along when they stumble.  And it’s usually when we’re so bloody and battered, we can’t even think to ask for help, can’t even see we need it.  These moms lift us up in the midst of their own struggles.  They are the shining light on the hill.  Without them, our own lights would be extinguished.  All hail the friends, partners, mothers who battle for the survival and triumph of those face down in the trench.

I’d be nothing without mine.

Don’t be alone.  Don’t do it on your own.  Accept a little help from your friends.

 

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Identity, Living, Spirituality

Loosen the Straps of Your Sandals

It all started with sandals.

The weather is warming up and my feet are already revolting against socks.  I pulled on my new pair with jeans this morning as I scrambled to get the kids to the bus stop on time.  There was a cool breeze and dew on the grass, but as the youngest and I drove home from the grocery store an hour or so later, the weather was ripe enough to open the sunroof and windows.

I wiggled my toes and was reminded of another pair of sandals I had long ago that walked the streets of Rome with me.

And I thought, it was these same feet that trod those distant roads.  The same feet that kicked in my mother’s womb; that padded the extra weight of my own babies around.  That hiked mountains and sunk in the sand of the ocean.  That have worn grooves in the floors of my house; climbed into airplanes and sailed around the world; walked into friends’ homes and down church aisles all over for all manner of reasons.

The world suddenly felt so accessible and so expansive all at the same time.

In an age when air travel and online communications make it possible to journey to distant lands in the virtual blink of an eye, it’s easy to think that we humans have seen it all, done it all, orchestrate it all.  And these technologies do make the interconnectedness of the world ever more possible and ever more valued.

But when I think how these lowly feet of mine are what carried me all those miles, yet left only dusty footprints to be blown away in the wind, I realize I cannot let the world revolve around me.

 

Image from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Image from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Maybe it’s our strong predisposition to self-preservation, but we humans tend to think each one of us is the center of the universe.  Indeed, our experience is based in this ever-changing, evolving, highly sensory vessel called the human body.  Only inhabiting the one, it makes sense that the one serves as command central.  But we’re not the only one.

Today I was able to get out of my own head.  I was able to see the globe as it turned and all the distinct individuals on it.  I was able to get up above it and not be buried in my own little corner of it.

I can’t walk in anyone else’s shoes, but I can try to remember that I do not journey alone.  And the steps of today are only part of the journey.  Of mine, of the whole universe’s.

Things much bigger than me are at work.  I only need wiggle my toes to remember.

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