I believe in synchronicity. Here is Carl Jung's definition to help you understand what I mean: "Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer." I believe in it because it has happened to me several time over the course of the last few years. When it happens -- and you'll know what I mean if it has ever happened to you -- I have to sit back for a moment and marvel.
Today's post is not about synchronicity. Sometime I will have to do a whole post about synchronistic experiences I have had. Not today. I bring up synchronicity because what I have to say on my topic is vastly different than I would have said last week, and it was a synchronistic experience that changed my mind.
I try to get a post up once a week, every Saturday morning. I missed last week's post because I was in the behavior health hospital on suicide watch. It's a pretty good reason, I think, to miss a week.
Don't get alarmed. I'm not suicidal anymore. In fact, I'm very glad I went to the hospital. I was at the end of my rope and needed help. My Angel and some good friends encouraged me to go. I got the help I needed, which was this: I learned that I have a mental illness or two. Their names are dysthymic disorder (low-grade depression) and generalized anxiety disorder (pretty self-explanatory).
Up until this point, I had been told that my depression and inability to stop worrying were my fault. I didn't trust God enough...I needed to change my thinking and my emotions would change too...blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you, I tried with every ounce of strength in me to do all of that. Even after I left the IFB, changing my thinking was still a huge focus.
I've been searching for several years now for someone to tell me it's not my fault. Yes, changing my thinking when I have a mistaken idea in my head does help. To a point. Then I was left with no idea how to handle the days of waking up feeling hopeless, depressed, and fearful. Nothing had changed about my life circumstances. I hadn't changed how I thought about them, so I had nothing to fight against.
I thought I was the problem. I had a flaw, a shadow side, that would not be happy despite my best efforts. I hated myself: hated looking in the mirror, because no matter how good I thought I felt, the reflection in the mirror told me otherwise. Its face was sad, full of hopelessness and fear. For a few weeks prior to my hospitalization, I fought this shadow side, becoming more angry at myself and more self destructive. Simply put, I reached the end of my rope...had nothing more to fight with. I planned to drive out into the countryside and abandon my car. To give myself up to the swirling snow, lay down, and let the bitter cold take me.
In spite of my intentions, I drove home, angry at myself the whole way. I couldn't fight the shadow side anymore. Going home meant I had to give myself up to it, which would make my life and Angel's a living hell. I hated myself for not sparing Angel the pain of living with me.
Thankfully, Angel and several other people encouraged me to go to the hospital for an assessment. I was admitted, and that is when my tale of hope began.
The next day, a doctor spoke to me of mental illness and his diagnosis: dysthymic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I had heard the terms before from my psychiatrist, but they sounded like indictments to me at the time. "You did this to yourself." If they had been more *serious* disorders, I would have been able to feel okay about saying that having a mental illness was not my fault. These? Were too mild to qualify. I felt they were psychobabble for "you make yourself depressed" and "worry-wart syndrome".
As this new doctor talked to me, however, he used the words *hereditary* and *real mental illness*. It took a while for these to sink in: that I really hadn't made myself sick for all these years. Instead, the childhood sadness and adult depression were merely indications that the illnesses were already active during those times.
Can I convey to you how like a balm those words were to me? I don't have a shadow side: I have an illness. Rather than being a depressed person, I am a person with depression. Rather than being a fearful person, I am a person with anxiety. (Much like "person with cancer" versus "cancer patient")
And best of all were the words that the doctor said next: *highly treatable*. Sure, I have to take medicine and continue psychiatric therapy for a while, but I can and will get better by learning to manage the symptoms.
I AM A WHOLE PERSON!!! I AM STRONG AND CONFIDENT, HAPPY AND LOVING. WHEN I FEEL OTHERWISE, IT IS JUST SYMPTOMS OF THE ILLNESS AND NOT A REFLECTIONS ON MY MORAL CHARACTER.
I suppose I have strayed from my intended topic and made this post more about mental health. This post was going to address the authoritarian system my parents followed in raising us kids: how it was harmful - even emotionally and spiritually abusive. Last week while I was in the hospital, I even began writing the post. Its tone was angry, and pointedly told my parents that following the IFB doctrine of child discipline is what had landed me in the hospital.
Synchronicity. After I talked to the doctor and spent several days in the hospital, I learned a few things. Since the illnesses I have are hereditary, they could have become active even if my childhood had been a happy one. No one can make me suicidal: it's what I choose to believe. Changing thinking is still an important part of my therapy, but, this time the premise is different. Distorted, automatic thoughts are not something I conjure up. The medicine I take helps keep the symptoms at a manageable level; from there, I have the responsibility to combat distorted thinking when it comes into my head and starts messing up my emotions. I have a new mantra: "There is always a third option. Reach for the middle ground."
So when I talk about the authoritarian system Mom and Dad bought into, I can't blame it or them for where I am today.
That being said, it need not keep me from saying how that same system is flawed and, many times, harmful. Although I thought I would still get into that today, I have decided to save it for next week. The topic deserves its own post.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Lessons from Kindergarten
How much do you remember of what you learned in kindergarten? I remember a good deal, and working on this post has made me recall even more. Some of the things I remember aren't even formative events. Like the time we made art by blowing through a straw at a splotch of black ink. It stank. And the time my teacher made stone soup for Thanksgiving. It was yucky.
I was held back a year for starting kindergarten. My September birthday landed one week after the little christian school would accept late enrollments. I didn't mind. It gave me the good fortune of playing at home everyday for another year. Plus, when I did start school, I got to do so with best friend Sammy.
I enjoyed kindergarten as long as Sammy was there. We sat together, ate lunch together, played together at break. Of course there were other children, but I didn't care to try to make friends with them. Sammy made other friends, however, and I remember one day a jealous girl hit me in the throat because she didn't want me around. But I clung to Sammy and she stood up for me.
One time, Sammy went home early because of a bellyache. I was faced with the prospect of going through a day at school without her. Anxiety clenched my stomach and pretty soon I told the teacher that my belly hurt too. Mom came and brought me home. Relief calmed me instantly, and I was back to normal, happy to be comfortable at home. Dad was mad at me, though, when he got home from work. He said I pretended to be sick to get out of school and gave me a spanking for lying. He made it clear that I would be in worse trouble if I ever pretended to be sick again.
Instead of learning to recognize and deal with social anxiety, I learned that there were kinds of feeling sick that "weren't real" and kinds that were. Not knowing the difference, I developed a fear of saying that I felt sick. Only if I felt like tossing cookies or if I was running a fever did I feel safe to approach my parents.
Another time, I got a urinary tract infection (UTI). I had to go to the doctor and get medicine to make it go away. The medicine was awful thick chalky stuff with grape flavoring that somehow made it worse. I had to drink a full glass of water afterwards too.
Dad was mad at me for getting the UTI. A round of questioning after the doctor visit revealed that I got the infection by wiping wrong after using the bathroom and not changing underwear everyday. He and Mom lectured me that I should have known better, but I hadn't. I felt embarrassed and upset for being blamed about getting sick. Was it my fault if being left handed naturally made me wipe wrong unless taught otherwise? And who had actually Told me to change everyday?
Dad wanted to punish me by not letting me spend the night over at Sammy's, but Sammy's mom talked him into letting me come anyway. She didn't blame me and was nice to me when it came time to take my medicine. This event taught me that unfortunate things that happened to me could somehow possibly be my fault.
There were things I enjoyed learning at kindergarten. For instance, I learned to read in kindergarten. The road was paved with phonics, and when it came down to actually reading a book, I took to it instantly. See Spot Run. It was like I had been reading for ever. I started out in the lowest reading level and was shortly moved to the top.
I also learned how to spell. 'THE' became my favorite word, my secret weapon. T-H-E...ta-huh-e, that's what the letters said by themselves, but together they said th-a. Armed with this code, I felt confident during a spelling contest when the teacher said, "Spell THE." The other child finished writing on the chalkboard faster than me, but he spelled it wrong and I spelled it right.
I learned slow is better than fast if you get the answer right.
I also learned how to count by 2's, by 5's and by 10's. And I learned to write a list of numbers in a straight column. For some reason that skill was very important, and much of our worktime in class was spent perfecting it.
Other things I learned were strange, like: then-President, George Bush, supported corporal punishment. He would even come to our little school himself, if he needed to, to punish a student that would not behave. And like: making the sign of the devil was bad. This lecture was given in every classroom throughout the school one day when a student got in trouble for flashing the sign at a teacher. "Don't stick your pinkie and your pointing finger up while making a fist." they said. I wanted to make sure I never made the sign of the devil by accident, so I tried doing what they said NOT do to so I would know what it looks like. I got my hand slapped for my troubles.
One time, clowns came to the school and put on a show. One talked about seeing a rainbow on the way there and pretty soon he was pulling rainbow colored streamers out of his mouth! The clowns taught us a new song, too. "The Lord liveth - huh - and blessed be my rock - huh, huh - and let the God of my salvation be exalted..." Dad didn't like the song when we sang it at home. He said it was too charismatic and that the school must be getting to be too charismatic.
I learned that just because something was called christian didn't make it good.
We rode the bus to school, but the bus didn't come to our house -- we had to go meet it. Mom and Sammy's mom took turns getting us to the bus stop. Everyday was a race to see who could get in the car and buckle up the fastest. Sometimes I won, but there was one time I lost because I was too busy trying to say "Pizza, pizza" like the Little Caesar's pizza man on tv.
To keep warm while we waited for the bus with the other kids, Sammy and I took turns running up to a pole and then letting our body momentum swing us around as we caught hold of it. One time a teenage girl saw me and squealed that I was so Cute with my turned up piggy nose. I couldn't imagine how having a pig's nose made me cute, so I learned to dislike my own appearance.
My brother Boss attended the same school. While I lived in a little world where barely anyone existed besides Sammy and me, he had some trouble with a teenage boy bullying him. He even came home one day with a black eye. I was scared of the older boy, but one time during recess, he played on the see-saw with me and was really nice. I felt special somehow. For a long time after that -- even into adulthood -- if someone had a reputation for being mean, I expected to be the exception to the rule because I believed them to be merely misunderstood and tried to treat them nicely.
My last story for this post is about something that has puzzled me for a long time. During recess one afternoon, it started snowing out really hard. In snow that thick the air becomes very still and sound travels poorly. Maybe that's why I didn't hear the bell for the end of recess. I just looked up and, all at once, everyone else -- even Sammy-- was gone. Except for an older boy I didn't know. But we were having fun pretending a roofless playhouse was our fort, so I didn't worry about it. Suddenly he acted like he had forgotten something and then he disappeared too. It came to me that recess probably should have ended already, so I hurried into the school building, expecting to be in trouble. Instead, an assistant met me with: "There you are. The boys are having naptime and the girls are having ice cream. Come on!"
Did I say anything about where I had been? No! I didn't want to get in trouble with Mom and Dad, so I kept my mouth shut. And I learned this: adults didn't always know when I had done something wrong. If I said nothing, they wouldn't be the wiser. Of course, this didn't always work, but that's a story for another post ;)
I was held back a year for starting kindergarten. My September birthday landed one week after the little christian school would accept late enrollments. I didn't mind. It gave me the good fortune of playing at home everyday for another year. Plus, when I did start school, I got to do so with best friend Sammy.
I enjoyed kindergarten as long as Sammy was there. We sat together, ate lunch together, played together at break. Of course there were other children, but I didn't care to try to make friends with them. Sammy made other friends, however, and I remember one day a jealous girl hit me in the throat because she didn't want me around. But I clung to Sammy and she stood up for me.
One time, Sammy went home early because of a bellyache. I was faced with the prospect of going through a day at school without her. Anxiety clenched my stomach and pretty soon I told the teacher that my belly hurt too. Mom came and brought me home. Relief calmed me instantly, and I was back to normal, happy to be comfortable at home. Dad was mad at me, though, when he got home from work. He said I pretended to be sick to get out of school and gave me a spanking for lying. He made it clear that I would be in worse trouble if I ever pretended to be sick again.
Instead of learning to recognize and deal with social anxiety, I learned that there were kinds of feeling sick that "weren't real" and kinds that were. Not knowing the difference, I developed a fear of saying that I felt sick. Only if I felt like tossing cookies or if I was running a fever did I feel safe to approach my parents.
Another time, I got a urinary tract infection (UTI). I had to go to the doctor and get medicine to make it go away. The medicine was awful thick chalky stuff with grape flavoring that somehow made it worse. I had to drink a full glass of water afterwards too.
Dad was mad at me for getting the UTI. A round of questioning after the doctor visit revealed that I got the infection by wiping wrong after using the bathroom and not changing underwear everyday. He and Mom lectured me that I should have known better, but I hadn't. I felt embarrassed and upset for being blamed about getting sick. Was it my fault if being left handed naturally made me wipe wrong unless taught otherwise? And who had actually Told me to change everyday?
Dad wanted to punish me by not letting me spend the night over at Sammy's, but Sammy's mom talked him into letting me come anyway. She didn't blame me and was nice to me when it came time to take my medicine. This event taught me that unfortunate things that happened to me could somehow possibly be my fault.
There were things I enjoyed learning at kindergarten. For instance, I learned to read in kindergarten. The road was paved with phonics, and when it came down to actually reading a book, I took to it instantly. See Spot Run. It was like I had been reading for ever. I started out in the lowest reading level and was shortly moved to the top.
I also learned how to spell. 'THE' became my favorite word, my secret weapon. T-H-E...ta-huh-e, that's what the letters said by themselves, but together they said th-a. Armed with this code, I felt confident during a spelling contest when the teacher said, "Spell THE." The other child finished writing on the chalkboard faster than me, but he spelled it wrong and I spelled it right.
I learned slow is better than fast if you get the answer right.
I also learned how to count by 2's, by 5's and by 10's. And I learned to write a list of numbers in a straight column. For some reason that skill was very important, and much of our worktime in class was spent perfecting it.
Other things I learned were strange, like: then-President, George Bush, supported corporal punishment. He would even come to our little school himself, if he needed to, to punish a student that would not behave. And like: making the sign of the devil was bad. This lecture was given in every classroom throughout the school one day when a student got in trouble for flashing the sign at a teacher. "Don't stick your pinkie and your pointing finger up while making a fist." they said. I wanted to make sure I never made the sign of the devil by accident, so I tried doing what they said NOT do to so I would know what it looks like. I got my hand slapped for my troubles.
One time, clowns came to the school and put on a show. One talked about seeing a rainbow on the way there and pretty soon he was pulling rainbow colored streamers out of his mouth! The clowns taught us a new song, too. "The Lord liveth - huh - and blessed be my rock - huh, huh - and let the God of my salvation be exalted..." Dad didn't like the song when we sang it at home. He said it was too charismatic and that the school must be getting to be too charismatic.
I learned that just because something was called christian didn't make it good.
We rode the bus to school, but the bus didn't come to our house -- we had to go meet it. Mom and Sammy's mom took turns getting us to the bus stop. Everyday was a race to see who could get in the car and buckle up the fastest. Sometimes I won, but there was one time I lost because I was too busy trying to say "Pizza, pizza" like the Little Caesar's pizza man on tv.
To keep warm while we waited for the bus with the other kids, Sammy and I took turns running up to a pole and then letting our body momentum swing us around as we caught hold of it. One time a teenage girl saw me and squealed that I was so Cute with my turned up piggy nose. I couldn't imagine how having a pig's nose made me cute, so I learned to dislike my own appearance.
My brother Boss attended the same school. While I lived in a little world where barely anyone existed besides Sammy and me, he had some trouble with a teenage boy bullying him. He even came home one day with a black eye. I was scared of the older boy, but one time during recess, he played on the see-saw with me and was really nice. I felt special somehow. For a long time after that -- even into adulthood -- if someone had a reputation for being mean, I expected to be the exception to the rule because I believed them to be merely misunderstood and tried to treat them nicely.
My last story for this post is about something that has puzzled me for a long time. During recess one afternoon, it started snowing out really hard. In snow that thick the air becomes very still and sound travels poorly. Maybe that's why I didn't hear the bell for the end of recess. I just looked up and, all at once, everyone else -- even Sammy-- was gone. Except for an older boy I didn't know. But we were having fun pretending a roofless playhouse was our fort, so I didn't worry about it. Suddenly he acted like he had forgotten something and then he disappeared too. It came to me that recess probably should have ended already, so I hurried into the school building, expecting to be in trouble. Instead, an assistant met me with: "There you are. The boys are having naptime and the girls are having ice cream. Come on!"
Did I say anything about where I had been? No! I didn't want to get in trouble with Mom and Dad, so I kept my mouth shut. And I learned this: adults didn't always know when I had done something wrong. If I said nothing, they wouldn't be the wiser. Of course, this didn't always work, but that's a story for another post ;)
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