Surviving Today

Hello, friends.

If you're a guy and you don't like hearing about "girl problems", feel free to skip down a few paragraphs.

Did you know that having depression can affect your period? I didn't have a period for about six months not too long ago. I knew I wasn't pregnant, and I wasn't exactly missing having a period, but it felt wrong to me. I asked my doctor and she said missing periods or having more symptoms than normal are common side effects of depression.

My period eventually came back. I'm on it now, and let me tell you, depression makes it so much worse. I'm so tired and crampy and sore and moody. I go from wanting to punch someone to wanting to curl up in a ball and sleep for three days. Recently, the symptoms from my periods have lasted for two weeks or more. It's really super fun.

Okay, gross girl stuff over now. But I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about the kind of effect depression has been having on my everyday life. It's not just the lack of energy or motivation. I'm constantly unable to get out of bed. Even during VBS week, normally my favorite week of the year, I couldn't get up on time. It wasn't that I didn't want to, because I love VBS. I just couldn't.

I'm always hungry, but also always nauseous. I hardly eat anything. It's easier to forget about my stomach pain when I'm eating with friends, but those are hard to come by around here. I end up binging on junk food late at night. I've gained a lot of weight.

I get headaches all the time.

I can never get comfortable. I constantly shift positions, whether I'm at my desk or in my living room or lying in bed trying to sleep. Every little thing makes me itch or need to stretch.

Any joy I find is temporary. Anything I find exciting quickly becomes a drag. If something frustrates me, I give up on it. It's not worth the effort when it's going to wear me out so quickly.

Amongst it all, I feel deep, unrelenting guilt. I want to fix myself. I can't.

I talk about my depression a lot. I hope it doesn't bring you down - I'm just seeking understanding, because I don't have much access to that here. I hunt for concern online because those who should be concerned here aren't. I want you to be able to recognize these symptoms in others, especially your church workers. We are a special breed. We need your support. We need your understanding and concern. And often, we feel we can't ask for it.

My counselor has long told me that in order to lift my depression, I need to either change my situation or get out of it. I'm working on the second option. It's a struggle to apply for jobs when I can hardly take care of myself. But I'm trying. I have hope that this will pass.

I'm off to lose myself in the world of Pokemon for awhile. Then it's back to the daily grind of surviving today so I can thrive eventually.

Pondering VBS Week

Hello, friends.

Vacation Bible School is coming up next week, and I feel like I should be doing my normal week-before-VBS panic dance. Weirdly, though... I don't have anything to do right now.

I've printed and stuffed name tags.
I've finalized the daily schedule and printed it.
The rosters are updated with the latest information.
All of the donations have been sorted.
I have a plan for what to do on Monday to set up.
I actually have all of the volunteers I need. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure.
I'm confident that the site leaders are prepared.
Opening and Closing are ready, music is ready, registration is ready, at least two of my site leaders have built big rockets (our VBS is space-themed), all is well.

It's a strange feeling, to feel like I'm ready for VBS. Typically at this time of year, I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off, finding dozens of last-minute details to figure out. This could mean one of two things. Number one, I'm getting better at this as time goes on. Number two, I simply don't have the energy to panic anymore. I think it's actually both of those things.

I'm very tired. If I'm tired now, I can only imagine how I'll be feeling after a week of VBS insanity.

Vacation Bible School is coming up next week, and for the first time, I don't necessarily know what's going to happen this summer after that. Weirdly, though... that's not as terrifying as it would have been last year.

Living In Fact

Hello, friends. You may think to yourselves, "Shouldn't Mary be working right now?" And you'd even be correct. However, I just spent an hour moving tables and chairs in the church gym. They were all moved for Sunday's service, and they needed to be put back before Midweek School today. At least ten people participated in moving them originally; today it was just me and one trustee. So I'm tired and sweaty and need to readjust before I continue working on VBS. Thus, here we are.

My pastor asked me yesterday what I'm dreaming of - what I find myself planning for in my spare time, when it's not necessary. What I told him was Midweek School, which has been both my favorite thing about my job since I started and something that has continually frustrated me. I constantly feel like I can be doing it better, but I can never put my finger on how. I've spent probably days at this point poring over materials and putting together various curriculums that I later scrap.

However, as you can probably guess, that's not what I would have said to someone who was not my supervisor. I'm dreaming of a place where it feels safe to dream. I find myself planning for a different life in my spare time. It feels like it is necessary.

My counselor recently pointed out that I live a lot of my life that way - in dreams, future plans, imaginings. This is a good thing in a lot of ways. When I'm imagining good things, I feel hopeful and excited. But when I'm imagining bad things, this turns into a problem fairly quickly. Even if a bad thing I'm imagining is based in reality, if it's not actually reality, then I shouldn't be living my life by it.

Case in point: after a rather negative meeting last October, I came to the conclusion that I couldn't talk about how I was feeling; that if I talked about how I was feeling, I could get in trouble and cause more problems than I already had. I turned my feelings inward. I hid them. I wore a mask every time I was in the church building, pretending that everything was fine. I was terrified to reveal to anyone, even people I trusted, that the vacancy was overwhelming and I was not okay.

The fact is that no one told me to do this. I came to this conclusion on my own accord. Yes, it was because of that negative meeting, but they never gave me the instruction to hide my depression. I made that decision myself, and it hurt me more, in the end.

My counselor recommended that I live my life based on fact, not suppositions. The fact is that I'm overwhelmed, and it's true that some people don't think I should be overwhelmed, but they don't get to decide who I trust with that information. I do. I've started to reveal bits and pieces to some of my trusted friends at church.

It helps.

Safety

Hello, friends.

It's been awhile since I wrote a blog post. There have been a few times that I've sat down to write, but it's always seemed like too much effort, and with no one to make me do it, it just hasn't happened. That's kind of how I feel about life these days. If no one is holding me accountable for something, and it's not essential to my life or my daughter's life... it just doesn't happen.

I've gotten around that a little bit with the help of my friend Lindsey. I had a list of phone calls to make last week, and I gave her the list and asked her to bug me about one or two calls per day. It helped. I got the calls made. The calls resulted in a long-overdue dentist appointment this morning, a meeting with my accountant this afternoon to go over my taxes, and the fact that I paid a lot of money to have my car fixed earlier... only for it to stall out on me yet again after I picked it up.

Yes, I'm going to take it in again tomorrow. But I'm frustrated and worn down and wishing someone else could pick up the slack. I'm also extremely paranoid while driving, which is a stressor that I really could do without. It feels like there's nowhere I can go to feel safe and nothing in particular I can do about that fact.

"Safety" has taken on new meaning for me in the last couple of years. I used to think of safety only in physical terms. If I wasn't in actual physical danger, I felt safe. Now, I have come to think of safety in emotional, mental, and spiritual terms. I feel safe when I'm confident in my job security, when I'm getting the parenting support that I need, when I can express the state of my mental health without fear of repercussions, when I'm able to rest and relax at home, when I have people around me that I trust. I haven't felt safe in a very long time. And now with my car issues... even that sense of physical safety is gone.

A leader of my church told me last year that I "just need to have more faith." Ignoring the fact that that's a terrible thing to tell someone with depression, he was also way off the mark. I don't need more faith. I am constantly relying on the faith I already have. Without my confidence that God loves and cares for me, that He called me and will never abandon me, that His plan is always far superior to mine - without my faith in God's unfailing promises, I would have given up long ago. But I have that faith. I trust my God. He will get me through this.

Big News, Take 3

Hello, friends! Some of you might not be aware of the recent Big News around here, so allow me to announce to you:

Redeemer's vacancy is almost over! Our new pastor will be installed on February 10th!

Obviously, this is exciting stuff. The vacancy has been, well, let's be honest - miserable. I am very excited to have a full-time pastor on staff once again. I know him a little bit and think he'll be a good fit.

However, I have some shocking news for you: pastors, no matter how fantastic they are, can't do this church thing all on their own. They are only people, after all. People that God has chosen to work on his behalf, yes, but people nonetheless. Our new pastor is not going to come in on day one and take away all of Redeemer's issues. That's just not how this works.

So as his installation day approaches, I ask that you would pray not only for Pastor Schroeder, but for me and our congregation, that we may all work together to further the kingdom of God.

Cleaning through Depression

Hello, friends.

On Friday, I cleaned my living room. It really needed it. Depression makes it hard to do anything other than what's absolutely necessary, and I am a very messy person even when not depressed, so my living room was a pigsty. Now it's clean. There are no piles of papers on my desk, no collections of empty boxes on the floor, no little pieces of trash everywhere.

My kitchen is clean, too. I did that yesterday. Again, it was a deeper clean than usual. My counters and table and floor are all cleared off.

My plan was to clean my bathroom and den today, but I think my temporary burst of energy is gone. I got the bathroom done. That's all I could do.

You may wonder why I'm detailing my cleaning for you. I tell you all of this because I know I'm not the only person on my Facebook friends list who has depression, and I want you all to know as I learn myself that whatever you can do, it's okay. It's enough. It may not be great, but that's because depression is not great. It's not a reflection on you. I refuse to be more down on myself because I couldn't finish my tasks. The fact that I started them is already better than it could be.

Be kind to yourself. And find people who will be kind to you when you can't do it. You don't have to go through this alone.

In Anticipation of Mashed Potatoes

Hello, friends.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving the state for a few days so that my mother can make me mashed potatoes (hint hint) and my father can spoil my daughter excessively. Also, so that I can hold my new baby niece. Mostly so I can hold my new baby niece.

I put it like that - "leaving the state" - because it's a really positive thing for me nowadays. It's difficult for me to find the positives around here, so I literally have to leave the city (or, preferably, the state) to find them. For example, I had a countdown on my phone for the premiere date of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and at the end of that countdown, I drove to Oklahoma City to see it. Spoiler alert: there are closer movie theaters. I just needed to get out of here.

That may seem depressing. No, it is depressing. But there's a silver lining in this story. I am making my own mental health a priority. I am recognizing that being here is depressing, and I am taking action to make sure that I go somewhere occasionally that is not depressing. I'm acknowledging my mental state and acting on it. That's a good thing.

I'm not nearly as addicted to NCIS as I used to be, but Gibbs' rules still pop into my brain sometimes. Rule 28: "If you need help, ask." This is another good thing I'm doing - remembering that I am not in this alone, and asking for help when I need it. My daughter informs me that I talk to Lindsey, like, every single day. This is a true fact. And while it's mostly because she's my best friend and I greatly enjoy talking to her, it's also because I know that when I need help, she'll be there. I call her in many and varied circumstances. I call her when I need to rant about bad meetings, and I call her when I need motivation to make a sandwich. Lindsey's definitely the person I contact the most, but there are many others, and I'm learning to rely on them.

I suppose what I'm trying to say while I wait for laundry to finish so I can go to bed is this: your mental health matters just as much as your physical health. Depression and anxiety are real things. (If you have questions about that, check out Elijah in 1st Kings 19 or the entire book of Job or, you know, this Jesus guy in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26.) Don't discount your feelings. Acknowledge them. Work through them. Ask for help. Find your ways to cope. It's okay to not be okay. And if anyone tells you differently... well, they're wrong.