Tag Archives: Reality

Happy Birthday to Me

04 Monday Jul 2016

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The house is quiet. There’s nobody here except me and a lone summer house fly. Last Wednesday was my birthday, and it came and went fairly quickly, as birthdays are wont to do. Nothing particularly wonderful or magical happened. Nobody rode up the driveway on a white horse. No miracles happened. After waiting all year for it, the day ended with a sort of quiet fizzle, and I woke up the next morning with life pretty much the same as it was the day before. And can I just say (because every divorced woman knows it) that the other side of the bed seems to stretch into infinity like a vast and empty wasteland, especially when we’re depressed or lonely. Not having someone to do life with hits hard on birthdays and holidays.

Can I get an Amen? Anybody?

I had the sobering realization the other day that some of my houseplants have lasted longer than my marriage did.

A long time ago I starting using my birthday the way most people use New Years’ Day, for reflection and setting new goals. It’s a day to stop and survey the stunning gap between where I am and where I want to be. Consequently, it’s also the time of year that I struggle the most with discouragement and an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. This latest birthday has been really difficult for some reason, probably because there were so many things I had wanted to do by this age. At this point I feel like I’m running a race I can’t win, mostly because I’m just too tired.

The Fourth of July is also always a long and lonely day for me. I have cried pretty much all weekend. The harsh and painful reality is that there is no husband grilling hamburgers out on the deck this weekend. We’re not having a picnic, or going to the beach. We’re not all going to the parade, or the fireworks together. The only thing I want in all the world is to spend the day with my kids, but since the divorce they are always with their dad, usually on vacation somewhere fun and sunny. Today they’re up in Old Forge, one of my favorite places to go in the summer. We camped there a lot when I was growing up, and I want to go back someday and smell the pine trees, walk through the woods, and go in all of the little shops. It’s a place I associate with happy family memories of campsites and candy, souvenirs and sandals.

There’s a wicked little imp who dances around my pillow every night, singing “You’re nothing but a failure … you’ll always be a failure … no one will ever want you … even God can’t help you … it’s too late! it’s all too late!” It’s the last thing I hear every night, and the first thing I hear every morning. It’s like being poked and prodded with a tiny little pitchfork all night.

I wake up exhausted every day.

The last fifteen years haven’t gone at all the way I hoped. Most of my friends who were divorced around the same time I was have all remarried, and now they have new homes and families of their own. I never, ever, intended to raise two girls all by myself, and it never occurred to me that I would be alone this long. I had thought that I would be done with school; that I would own my own home, and that my counseling center would be up and running by now. It feels sometimes like it’s too late for all of my hopes and dreams, and I have a hard time most days hoping and dreaming for anything anymore. A lot of my prayers have gone unanswered. I don’t question God’s authority, but sometimes I just want to know why?

I ran into an old friend this afternoon in the drugstore. We met about thirty years ago in a campus ministry group, and as we talked about all we have been through, and where life has brought us, we kept coming back to the fact that no matter how hard and harsh life can be, God is still ultimately in control. Even when we can’t see it, He is guiding and directing us. He has led and kept us through it all, and we have to believe He will continue to do so, because if we don’t, there’s really no reason to go any farther. There would be no reason not to quit.

Christians often like to pick what we call our “life verse”; a portion of Scripture that has personal meaning for us, and seems to sum up what we feel our individual life with God is all about. Mine is Philippians 3:12-14:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not count myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

This is what brings me back every time. So, tired or not, there will be no quitting today. I haven’t come this far to give up now, even though it may look to everyone else like I haven’t accomplished anything yet, and quite possibly never will. I know better than anybody that I have stumbled and fallen many times, but as far as I’m concerned, every day is a new opportunity to start again. One more time.

Sometimes I have to write my way back to a right way of thinking.

Happy Fourth of July everybody. Have a safe and blessed holiday.

Buying Grace

31 Saturday Jan 2015

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On March 28, 1997, someone in Syracuse, N.Y. went into a Media Play store in Shoppingtown Mall and bought a book.  I know, because a few weeks ago, I went into a thrift store in North Syracuse and picked it up for a dollar.  It is in like-new condition, and inside the front cover is a light blue post-it note filled with hand-written notes and page numbers. Whoever bought it had also left the receipt in it.  I have been trying to picture who this person could be, and what compelled them to buy it in the first place, and then get rid of it?  Client or clinician?  Someone I’ve sat next to in church, or worked with?

The book is Understanding the False Memory Crisis and How It Could Affect You, by Dr. Paul Simpson.  To someone who has lost a large piece of my life to False Memory Syndrome, this book was a God-send. Unless you’ve been through it, it’s impossible to describe, much less explain, leaving virtually no one to talk to who can understand or help.  In fact, until I bought the book, I had felt completely alone with all of this.  I have no idea how many other people in Syracuse have been through anything similar, or who have had a problem after going to counseling, either to the church or to a professional in the community.

What I like about the book is that Dr. Simpson writes with both humility and grace, towards both counselor and client.  He also used to be one of those who not only helped people recover from ‘memories’ that they had ‘repressed’ but trained others how to do it, too. Until, like I did, he noticed things just didn’t seem right, and the stories weren’t lining up with reality.  This is the beginning of the way out.

And, as he states in the book, once he realized that he was unintentionally contributing to the problem, he called his former clients and invited them to come back at no expense to them in order to unravel and clear up the mess, and help them heal.  This, to me, is the epitome of professionalism.  It takes a great deal of humility to do this, not to mention compassion.  It takes grace.

It’s a very well written book, and I’m grateful to have found it.  I truly believe God led me to it, as part of my own healing, which has been a slow and solitary journey, due to the fact that we seem to have quite a few counselors in Onondaga county who still practice some type of ‘recovered memory’ therapy.  Most people don’t know what I’m talking about, and can’t help.  Some of our local Christian therapists and counselors still believe in repressed memories, dissociative disorders, and/or Satanic Ritual Abuse. Quite a few of the churches and para-church ministries in the area practice ‘deliverance’ counseling, or Theophostics, and some still use books and practices found in Neil T. Anderson’s The Bondage Breaker.

I don’t believe anyone intentionally caused harm, including my pastoral counselor.  All she did – unintentionally, and sincerely (I believe) – was to build on a foundation that had already been laid.  My own confusion and exhaustion at the time didn’t help.

So, we’ll see where it leads.  All I know is that on a recent snowy day in Syracuse, I walked into a store and bought grace.

Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers:  the snare is broken, and we are escaped.  Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  ~ Psalm 124:7-8

The Shadow Side of Truth

19 Friday Sep 2014

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3600329089432I spent most of this summer looking for a place to live.  For some reason, I also spent it re-reading a book by Robert M. Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; a book that was assigned in an English class my husband and I took years ago, before we were married.  This is one of my all-time favorite books, not just because of the memories of my relationship with my husband, before everything went so horribly wrong, but because it’s probably one of the best philosophy books I’ve ever read.  It was around that same time, that first semester of college, that I dug a used copy of Francis A. Schaeffer’s The God Who Is There out of a bin in the college bookstore.  Although Pirsig circles spiritual truths and poignant realities without ever coming to actually know God in a personal way, and Schaeffer’s book argues from the other side, both books shaped much of my young-adult thinking.  Anyway, I thought I was so desperately searching for Zen because I missed my husband, but I think I was really just looking for me.  (The old pink copy from Mr. Baldwin’s English class was buried somewhere deep in a storage unit, so I finally went to Barnes and Noble and bought myself a new copy, which I liked much better anyway.)

I wandered pretty far off the path this summer in my thinking.  Stress does this to me;  I can think myself into a hole so deep only God can find me.  He always does, but not without considerable grief on my part, usually ending in some kind of confused fog that no amount of therapy or medication can dissipate. I went all the way to Is there really a God, and do we even exist, and if we don’t, then what’s the point of it all anyway? full circle back to There is a God, and these are real tears, so I must exist, and therefore, there must be a point out there somewhere.  The real value of a book like Pirsig’s is that while truth is approached but never arrived at, it gives you something to measure truth by.  A theoretical plumb line.  As in, okay, if I do not believe this to be truth, then what is?  Or, more accurately, what exactly do I believe?  “Truth is arrived at by the painstaking process of eliminating the untrue.” And while the Lord was more than patient with all of my midsummer wanderings, now it’s time to put things back in order and get back to work.

Mice.

An irritatingly re-occurring, and always traumatic reality in my life, they seem to have moved in to this place sometime before we did, and I can’t quite wrap my head around how to deal with them.  I don’t want to;  I want them gone.  Can’t get a cat, either, because I’m as allergic to them as I am afraid of mice.  Besides, a sign saying “This house is guarded by a kitten” is something only a real blond would put in the window.  I had just been thinking, too, that I don’t actually meet the DSM criteria for PTSD anymore (said criteria having been obliterated by all of the ones required for a major depressive disorder) and haven’t for some time, but no, no such luck.  Back with a vengeance, which is so humiliating, because this house was supposed to be both a blessing and a place of refuge.  And so many, many people bent over backwards trying to help me, and are now so happy and relieved that my summer of homelessness is over, that I don’t have the heart to tell them how upset I am with where I am.

The proper response to “Blessed and highly favored;  how are you?”  is not “Stressed and suicidal, thank you.” (“Blessed and highly medicated” doesn’t go over so well, either, unless you actually like being obviously and hyper-actively avoided by other well-dressed, seemingly healthy, adults.)  At least, not at our church.  Our poor staff is just not prepared to deal with such disturbingly raw honesty, so out of kindness and consideration for them, from the goodness of my heart, I give the appropriate response, knowing full well that I’m lying through my teeth the whole time.  God forgive me.

I really am grateful.  Grateful for a place to think, to write, to sleep and study.  I missed my bed.  And my coffee maker.

It’s good to be back.

Fears, Phobias, and Fairytales

06 Friday Jun 2014

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profile_236971163_75sq_1350264225I have been away from the blog for quite a while. Moved one daughter home from college, and the other one into a new apartment, and then she graduated from her college.  In the middle of it all, my mom had surgery, and was in the hospital.  Throw in a graduation party, and our own packing because we have to move soon, and endless financial aid requirements for the next round of classes for everybody in the fall, and you have an idea of how our summer is going to go.  We sleep, shower, and run.  We’re tired.

The graduation party.  In my mind, I love parties.  I like to plan them, go to them, dress up for them.  I’m a very social person… in my mind.  In reality, I have social anxiety, and this is how it plays out:  I plan a large party for one of my kids, and buy a lot of food, and decorations, flowers, and balloons.  Then I freak out and don’t invite anybody because I can’t make phone calls.  There is no help for this;  I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.  It’s embarrassing, and frustrating.  I have a hard time going to their school events, or anything else that involves large groups of people, or strangers.  Graduation parties, weddings, receptions, reunions, work, school, church, you name it, I get sick over it.  Not with friends and family, and never in counseling, but pretty much anything else.

My counselor once said she really wouldn’t have time for someone like me until she was at least partially retired.  A fair, but cringe-worthy observation.  I am not an easy problem to solve.  I never really knew myself what was wrong with me, until I went to a clinical training on children and anxiety.  I ended up in the back of the room, which was a good thing, because I cried all through it.  It was the first time I had ever heard myself described so accurately.  Turns out there are a lot of people who grew up just like me; afraid to make phone calls, uncomfortable around anyone except close friends and family, too afraid to go to school.  I don’t do well in staff meetings at all, and my internships were so anxiety-provoking  (because of the performance aspect) that I was sick most of the time.  I wouldn’t have made it through at all except for two things:  an absolutely unshakable knowing that this is what I am called to do, and my own weekly appointment with my counselor.  How I will manage grad school I don’t know, but hopefully this situation will be resolved by then.

Anyway, we have to move in less than twenty-five days, and once again, we have nowhere to go.  I miss owning my own home so much.  I just want to be able to paint my bedroom the color I want it, and plant my flowers, and actually see them come up and enjoy them.  I miss our yard, and our trees.  Losing our home has been the single biggest factor in our financial security.  Well, okay, losing my husband was THE single biggest factor – many women who experience divorce immediately plunge below poverty level, along with their children.  One minute I was eating appetizers with local politicians and celebrities, and the next thing I knew I was sitting in the Civic Center downtown, waiting to meet with the domestic-violence worker who would sign us up for food stamps and other social programs.  Nothing prepares you for that;  what in the world do you wear?

I’m tired of living in other people’s houses.  I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but  it is depressing to live everyday in an environment that isn’t yours to change, or to make pretty.  We have had our share of slumlords, and terrible problems with mice, bees, and squirrels.  (In the house.)  People tend to not take care of their rental properties, but because of our limited finances, we have had few choices along the way.  It’s been a matter of we-have-to-take-whatever-we-can-get-because-we-have-to-move-next-week for the most part.  The last house was the best so far, but, as has so often happened, the house was put on the market, and it sold to someone who wanted $400.00 more a month than we were already paying.  (Oddly enough, I think I saw her in church tonight, too.  Weird.)

What do I want?  I want what most single moms want:  a house, a home, a husband, security.  Peaceful, quiet, private, and safe.  I want to drive, for once, with the gas light on the dashboard not always on.  I want to read a recipe, and actually have the money to buy all the ingredients.  I want to plant flowers, and paint walls, and unpack boxes, and rest.  To stop this incessant moving.  Everyone is telling me I have to be realistic;  that I can’t keep expecting God to help me out of all the messes I seem to get myself into;  that God doesn’t always give us what we want, and I have to stop expecting so much, and asking God for more than what would be possible under normal circumstances.  I already know this.

I serve a big God.  That’s all I can say.  Do I deserve anything?  Nope, not on my own merit.  I have messed up more times than I can count, intentionally or not.  I don’t even feel particularly loved most of the time, and sometimes I question if God even exists, or if I’ve fallen for some kind of fable, or fairytale.  But at the very core of my being, under all the doubt and disbelief, I know that God exists.  I do know that He loves me.  And I know He delivers.  Every time.  Always has, always will.

Good-early morning people.

 “In the day that I called, you answered me.  You encouraged me with strength in my soul.” ~ Psalm 138:3

Pain

28 Friday Feb 2014

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Those of us who live with deep grief walk a bit differently.  We stoop a little, limp a lot, and take our steps slowly. Grief is mind-bending;  it alters your steps, shifts your perceptions, and echoes loudly in the soul.  It doesn’t go away; it’s always present. First thing thought about in the morning, and the last thing thought about at night.  No, that’s not quite true- it happens before the thinking even starts, and continues when all thinking stops.  It’s the stuff bad dreams are made of.  It just is.  Controlling our thoughts is good, as far as it gets us, but it does begin to dawn on even the most naive at some point that we really haven’t gotten very far, and very little about the situation has actually changed.  Trying to explain to someone what we need or want doesn’t work so well, either.  It’s too hard to put into words what we need and why;  too difficult to even try to explain what it is we’re trying to say.  So the whole thing becomes even more of a mess.  The odds of being both heard and understood aren’t great.  Nobody’s listening.  It feels as though God Himself is not listening.

Sometimes other people really do hold all the power, at least in any given situation.  Anybody who has ever been the victim of a crime knows this.  Any woman who has ever been in a domestic violence situation knows that the other person is in control, at least of events located in time and space. The person holding the weapon is the one who gets to decide what happens next. It is far easier to be compliant, and usually a lot safer in the long run, if not in the moment.  Most of the time we don’t have a choice, nor are we asked. We realize too late that if we had any say in the matter at all, that time has long since come and gone, and we are completely at the mercy of the person in front of us. Horrible feeling.

We don’t have as much control over our own destinies as we would like to think, either.  To imagine that we have control is simply not always true, especially where other people are concerned.  As my daughter said earlier, people have free will. Free to use it for good or evil, hurt or healing, but have it we do, because God saw fit to give it to us.  We have to live with the consequences of other people’s choices, like it or not, even if it scars us for life, and leaves us disabled. We know this is not Heaven, but the shock hits us hard every time, nonetheless.  What does shock feel like?  Same thing pain does.  Tonight it was cold. Absolutely freezing cold.

Hope is not control, although we hang onto it like it is. We’re fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.  We have control only over our own actions and our own words, but that’s about it.  Most of the time we are powerless.  Yes, in all the small, daily choices, I have a certain degree of control;  how I spend my money, how I spend my time, what food I eat, or clothes I buy.  But for the big things- the life changing things- no.  Not so much.  And there is not a damn thing I can do about any of it.  I simply have no say.  And I do not see it as being any different from any other life-threatening, or emotionally damaging situation I have ever been through.  To be empowered, you have to be given a choice.  There has to be one.  And you can’t force someone to give it to you.

This is where Anorexia starts:  with the realization that since we have absolutely no control over whatever is going on in our outer world,  we sure can control the hell out of our inner world, so control it we do, one restrictive, self-imposed choice at a time. In deference to not having any control over the world around us, we just make an inner one, and barricade the door.  It has been said that we try to control our outer world because we cannot control our inner world, but for the anorexic and the avoidant, the reverse is true.         

Someone asked me this week to write my testimony;  the story of my healing from all that I went through with my divorce, but I realized tonight I don’t think I’m going to have one. Not from all of this.  Had I known everything that would happen after, especially the last few years, I can honestly say I would rather have stayed married. That part of the story is familiar territory;  it’s all I’ve ever known.  It’s okay.  I am never so unsure of my subject as when I am writing about myself, and wasn’t sure what to write anyway.  But emotional healing is not an option.  I am simply not being given a choice.  Again.  In therapy, this is called re-traumatization.  Works about the same as the original trauma, but now we add a moat.  No bridge.

This is all I do have tonight;  I memorized it a long time ago, not on purpose, but I read it once and it stuck, so here it is:

“Pain has an element of blank;                                                           

It cannot recollect

When it began, or if there was

A time when it was not.

It has no future but itself;

Its infinite realms contain

It’s past enlightened to perceive

New periods of pain.”

 – Emily Dickenson

Sorry, but I did warn you that it wasn’t always going to be happy over here, and tonight it just isn’t.  Don’t know if and when it ever will be, but not now. Certainly not tonight.  Can’t even find a scripture for this one, and there sure as hell aren’t any pretty pictures.

This Little Piggy…..Is Broken

13 Thursday Feb 2014

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My youngest daughter has a toe that is out of joint, and has been for some time.  She won’t let anyone touch it, because she knows it will hurt to pop it back in, so she lives with the poor little toe bent sideways.  She will not go to the doctors for it, even though a doctor is what she needs.

This is how I was when I entered counseling.  I successfully avoided all my old, deep-rooted little girl hurts, and drove my counselor to the point of exasperation.  I am sure I am not fun to work with.  We have talked, most of the time, about anything and everything but my deepest fears and most painful memories.  I have talked about everything from work to the weather.  Some of it is important, and a few years ago another situation came up, and needed to be dealt with.  And she really has helped me with that, quite a bit.

But whatever you do, just don’t touch that.  Don’t look at it, talk about it, bring it up, or I’m leaving the room.

I have done this for about ten years.

In counseling, we call this resistance.  Some of us are better at it than others.

I have had several burn victims as clients;  they are covered with either raw blistering skin, or peeling flakes of dried out skin.  They shrink from being touched, even while desperately needing to be touched.  Everything hurts.  They are the clients I most identify with, because of their scars.

Healing takes a very long time.

I have wondered what to do with this blog;  there are some who think I shouldn’t be writing about my personal life and my experience in counseling at all.  That I should keep this very spiritual, and all about God.  And I have read many beautiful blogs, about decorating, and cooking, and ministry, and all of the things I was interested in before all this happened.  I want a blog like that:  all pretty pictures and happy, uplifting thoughts.  I have read blogging books, and books on how to build your platform, and drive people to your site.  All very inspiring, if your goal is to make money.  The thing about a blog is that once you start, if you do it well, the blog writes itself.  And you forget when you’re writing that other people are reading it;  that they can read your heart.

The only really bad feedback has come from my counselor herself.  She read it, and was upset thinking that I am ruining her reputation, and trying to make her sound like a bad counselor.  I’m not, and she isn’t.  I only want to try to make sense out of all this, and salvage what I can of the pieces, and try to re-create my life.  To put the puzzle back together, so to speak.  But, this has changed me.  I still love all those things:  gardens, and art; music and decorating,  but not now.  I read somewhere once that depression kills creativity, and this is true.  All of the things that make me me are on hold until this situation is resolved.  I am simply too sad.

So, the blog will have to be a bit of all of it, because I am all of it.  It won’t be really professional, or pretty, or even all that happy or uplifting to read.  All I really am is a professional human being.  That’s it;  nothing more.  And I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not.  I can’t pretend this situation with my counselor didn’t happen, not even to make her happy so she won’t be angry anymore.  I did try, for a while, but it was like wearing someone else’s armor, which is never a good idea.  It doesn’t fit, and it slows you down. The situation at church, with the elder who created this whole mess has never been resolved, and because of my frustration with it all, my counseling came to a completely unexpected and inexplicable end.  Suddenly.  And ten years of work, of my life, was thrown away by someone I never in a million years thought would do that.

Silly me.

So, as I tell clients, I am a reality counselor.  (Is it okay to say I have a counselor, and also that I am a counselor?  Well, I did.  And I am.)  And this is a reality blog.  God can handle reality;  He is, in fact, only able to freely work in our lives when we are real.  When we are honest, with Him, and with ourselves.

My daughter was home for the weekend, but on Monday she and her poor little out-of-joint toe headed back to school, leaving one very sad mama who isn’t dealing very well with an empty nest.  It’s awfully quiet here.

Good-night, people.

Speaking the Truth in Love

20 Wednesday Oct 2010

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the Stainned Gless of depicting the Holy Spirit.

Image via Wikipedia

Truth should always be spoken in love.  Sometimes our intentions are misunderstood, and sometimes we do not understand our own motives for saying things.  Spiritual maturity is about being able to hear what someone is saying, and sifting it through the truth we know about ourselves, and then asking the Holy Spirit to reveal what we don’t know.  God is not out to humiliate, or embarrass us. We have to learn to take these situations and lay them out before the Lord and admit that we don’t know what to do.  Words that are spoken cannot be unspoken.  The most difficult thing to do is to go back and say “I’m sorry”.   When we have reacted by over-spiritualizing something, it’s even more difficult.  Most of the time we’re not being attacked  by demons, but by consequences.  A hard thing to admit, when our reputations are at stake.  Sometimes, truth hurts.  But healing is not possible unless truth is spoken in love.  This is the value in counseling.  If someone has known a great deal of harshness and unkindness in their life, it can be a tremendously restorative experience to have a person who treats you with love and respect.  A good counselor models the love of God to their clients, and teaches by example what grace and mercy look like in relationship.

So, where does that leave us?  For starters, let’s be gentle, kind, and forgiving with each other.  In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul encouraged the new believers to speak the truth in love, for the express purpose of becoming more like Christ.  He said:  “Then we will no longer be immature like children.”  When we have a problem with another believer, we should go to them privately, and speak to them in a way that encourages growth and healing.  Children react defensively.  Not every situation is a ‘win-win’ situation, and contrary to popular opinion, this shouldn’t be our goal.  Love is.   Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is let go of your need to be right;  to say, “You know what, I’ve hurt you, and I didn’t mean to.  I’m so sorry.  What can I do to make this right?”  Think of how many problems in the church could be avoided if love was our primary goal.  Right thinking may be accomplished by Truth alone, but no true soul healing occurs without love, in or outside of the church.

“Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.”  -Ephesians 4:15 NLT

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