The Good Fight

In my recent blog posts, for some reason I keep talking about my "last" icky bout of depression like it's past tense. It's still happening...I am still in it. There have been some really really dark days and if my head is above water it is only just so. Any little thing sends me back under the thick black water of rage, tears, exhaustion, and suicidal ideation (thinking but not doing).

Last week I had an extremely bad day. In the end, I had a medication issue, but not realizing what was going on, I spent a whole day being an emotional train wreck. On that day, I wrote, and subsequently deleted, a very negative blog post. A few people saw it. It's not vital that I go into it in this post...but it raised some red flags in my family. My mom and sister and a few friends were very concerned for me...as well they should have been. They called or Facebooked and rallied around me. I really needed it. A lot of people I care/cared about are no longer walking with me through this illness. I feel like I am sucking my loved ones dry, so my heart soared to know that people were still willing to be invested in my mess. I am thankful that there are a few people still in my corner...cheering me on and pushing me forward.

This particularly prolonged season of depression has been with me (in varying levels of intensity) for nearly two years. I am burning out on new game plans and new diets and new meds and new blahbbity blahs. I just want to feel good again. I am truly getting weary of fighting. Some days I just want to let the dejection wash over me and have it's way.

BUT...I plan to keep fighting. I am running an emotional marathon. I'm plodding along, but I'm still in the race. There is no new plan in place. I just have to keep working the old one and taking every day as it comes...one foot in front of the other. It is my hope to one day look back on this interval of depression and view it as a time where God used the agony within me to produce beautiful things in me like resilience, strength, hope, and faith.

Shattered

How many times can I break till I shatter?

Over the line can't define what I'm after

I always turn the car around

~O.A.R

One of the special quirks that makes me...me...is the fact that I consider my life to have a running soundtrack. Usually these songs change with every season. About every 3 months, I find myself being totally obsessed with a new song. I'll listen to it on repeat or search the radio for it. If I can't get enough of it, I know I've found my composition du jour . Simply hearing one of these songs can instantly whisk me away...reminding me of of how I was feeling or who I was loving at a particular point in my life.

Here is a quick sample of the tracks that serve as my emotional bookmarks:

• Power Of Love~ Celine Dion
• Kissed By A Rose ~ Seal
• Good Riddance ~ Green Day
• Angel Mine ~ Cowboy Junkies
• Real World ~ John Mayer
• Bring Me To Life ~ Evanesence
• Big Girls Don't Cry ~ Fergie
• Viva La Vida ~ Coldplay
• Sweet Escape ~ Gwen Stefani
• Down ~ Jay Sean
• Party In the USA ~ Miley Cyrus
• We Are Young ~ Fun

Beyond the list of magical time machine tunes, there is yet another list. On this second list is a smaller sample that I consider to be the overarching musical themes of my life...the ones that make me feel like the songwriter had me in mind when they penned the lyrics...they kill me softly, if you will. These melodies are the comfortable places I run to when I feel things way down in my soul. 

Some of those include:

• Hallelujah ~ Rufus Wainwright
• It Is Well With My Soul ~ Horatio Spafford
• Wonderful World ~ Louis Armstrong
• Today ~ John Denver
• Runaway Train ~ Soul Assylum

And...of course...Shattered by OAR. For the last few days I have been looping this song every time I get into my car and wailing the words along with the band (with my windows up, because I am polite). Now, I think that this song is supposed to be about a bad but addictive relationship...but that isn't how it resonates with me. The imagery of being broken so many times that you are afraid you are going to crash to a million pieces, deciding that you can't take it anymore, driving away angry and determined, only to be compelled to turn the car around and head back into the drama...that imagery is a poetic picture of how it often feels for me to be a parent. 

In the last few weeks, motherhood has been less like a joy and more like an emotional assault. Yes, kids are always hard...but in recent times, my sons have been particularly challenging. I've endured literal fits of rage, direct contempt, tyrannical demands, hateful words, and princely entitlement on an hourly basis. Coupled with this barrage of disheartening behaviors has been the continued problem of Big Boy and his struggles in school...unpleasant teacher meetings, continual problem solving, desperate calls to school counselors, and gross, visceral, untidy prayers for the heart and mind of my firstborn. 

Especially since I am just coming off of a "down" time, I am feeling kind of fragile right now. I find myself wondering how many more times I can break 'til I shatter. 

The Family Business

NOTE: I do not have a degree in history. I am writing some of this post from my general (and limited) understanding of historical family and work life. So, if you DO have a history degree and happen to find inaccuracies...just let it go man...I am mostly using "work" as a metaphor. 

Until modern times, it was assumed that whatever trade you found yourself working in...you probably learned it from your parents...and you had every intention of passing this livelihood onto your own children. If your parents were farmers, you'd probably inherit the farm when they passed away. If your parents were weavers, you would inherit their loom and all of their clients once they had gone. If your parents owned the tavern, it was going to be yours one day. 

If your parents were savvy farmers/business people, they prepared you for this inevitability by training you in the ways of the family business from a young age. Farmers had their progeny help pull weeds and milk cows, only to increase their workload and responsibility as they got older. Weavers likely taught children to wind skeins of yarn and how to untie knots, then progressed them into the art of textiles as they matured. The tavern owners probably had their offspring fetch water and wash mugs until they were skilled enough to work the counter and take money. There probably wasn't some big formal plan...it was just life...parents taught children how to do life as they knew it.

We don't really have the same tradition in the 21st century. But, just like gardening gives me a modern connection to my agrarian ancestors, so parenting has, in a way, given me a connection to my ancient foremothers and forefathers. There are skills that I must pass on to my sons that will give them the best shot at life. Tonight, I began to pass on the family business. 

Tonight Big Brother had a big, nasty, violent, tantrum. It was because he didn't feel like he'd been given enough "tablet time" before bed, a small thing. But, the day had already been more than his little mind and heart could bear and the minuscule injustice became the straw that broke the camel's back. My son raged for a good, solid, 5 minutes (which is a really long time when someone is deep in the throws of fury). He kept screaming, "You don't even love me! You don't even care that I was born!" This fear, though untrue and unfounded, has been seeded into his mind. In response to that, I knew it was time to have a family business conversation with him.

The most meaningful teaching that I have had on Proverbs 22:6 is that "train up a child in the way he should go" might mean, guiding the child on the path God has laid within the child's temperament and personality. I regularly pray that God will help me to train my children in accordance to the way He has created them. Big Brother, like me, is a Sensitive (so is Little Brother...but in a different way). I would be remiss if I did not teach my son how to properly handle the blessing and the burden of absorbing the world's emotions. 

Once he calmed down and was serene enough to talk and listen, I went into his room and lay beside him on his bed. I reassured him that he was deeply loved and that I am so glad he was born. Then I showed him the Kindle in my hand, which was opened it to the book cover for The Highly Sensitive Child, I asked him to read the title aloud...then asked him what "sensitive" meant. Using the parallel picture of "sensitive skin", he was able to arrive at a fairly accurate definition. Then I unpacked a little bit of what it means for him, for US, to be Highly Sensitive. Because he's still so little, I didn't get into all of the gritty details...I just needed to hit some specific highlights.

For him, that means creating physical and emotional space for him to defrag when he gets home from school. It also means helping him find appropriate outlets in which to be a feeler, like collecting pop tabs for Ronald McDonald House, donating toiletries to deployed soldiers, and letting him get super involved in his school's anti-bullying campaign. I am tasked with teaching him to pay attention to his moods and find ways to deescalate when he feels himself ramping up. He needs to learn how to have emotions without losing control. He must learn about asking forgiveness for his outbursts and make a conscious choice to let go of the guilt and shame that may result from those emotional eruptions.  I, as his parent, must also teach him about his limits by setting appropriate external ones, like restricting screen time before bed. 

Big Brother is a Sensitive, I am one too, as is my father, my grandfather, and based on the knowledge of my extended family's mental health issues...there were many Sensitives before that...it's, in essence, our family business.  As I have stated before, I consider my Sensitivity a gift from God...I consider Big Brother's Sensitivity a gift from God. So much love and mercy and peace can be given to the world through our sharply tuned emotions. But, unless I teach my son how to properly dispense this ability (and discover those skills myself), the pain and injustice of the world could overpower the beauty of this Sensitivity.

Gluten-free-Pesco-Ovo-Plant-itarian: Is That Even A Thing?

When I was diagnosed with Stage 7 Adrenal Fatigue, my doctor put me on a ton of supplements. She also put me on the Blood Type Diet. I followed it faithfully---for while. Once Little Brother was diagnosed with allergies to ALL OF THE THINGS, I got kind of overwhelmed and just focused on taking care of his complicated food needs. I've been eating any old way I want to. My digestive tract is NOT happy about this. Every time I eat, my stomach rebels and I am getting all kinds of fun pain and drama from my innards.

For a few days I thought the nausea might be allergies. It's ragweed season and that junk runs all of my systems through the wringer. Then I thought I might have a tummy bug because one of my students puked at school...but I kept feeling gross even after the normal time it takes for a stomach bug to run it's course. I know for certain that this isn't morning sickness. And, of course a quick check with WebMD revealed that I probably just have stomach cancer (oh, WebMD). But...I began to notice that the tummy trouble was directly correlating to when I had just eaten...especially if I had eaten sugary carbs or dairy. At that point I surmised that my body was telling me that I needed to again be mindful of the food I was putting into my body.

The Blood Type Diet is used by my naturopathic doctor to use food to reduce inflammation in the body. I am blood type A...so in order to use this diet to quiet inflammation, I have to give up all meat (except fish and eggs) and most dairy (I can occasionally have fresh, un-aged cheeses and plain yogurt). I also am limited to gluten free grains and cannot have potatoes or nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant). That's a REALLY lot of dietary restrictions (some of it won't be too hard since Little Brother shares a good many of these restrictions).

Last time I used this diet, I went all the way all at one time.  This time I am going to ease in. It's my hope that by slowly eliminating foods and replacing them with approved alternatives, I can embrace this way of eating as a forever change instead of a short term "diet".  I found some really good lists of how to gradually become a vegetarian. While I am not a TRUE vegetarian, for recipe and meal planning purposes, I am. So...I'm...A...Kinda...Sorta...Vegetarian?

Apparently hard core vegans and vegetarians take issue with people bastardizing their diets by adding non-vegetarian/vegan elements in.  So, in order to assuage the sensibilities of my true vegan and vegetarian brothers and sisters...I am labeling myself a Gluten-free-Pesco-Ovo-Plant-itarian.

NOTE: I also make the vow NOT to preach the tenets of this way of eating. It helps my body feel better. It's not really for weight loss AND it's specific to my blood type....so, it will not be beneficial to everyone. I just want to document all of the tools that I am using to help my body and mind become healthy. If it sounds intriguing, look into it...if not...find your own path grass-hoppa.