A Lessed Depressed Update

Hey all! The extra Lexapro is helping, and I am feeling much better. Sometimes brain chemistry just needs a little help. My husband has been absolutely incredible and deserves a post all to himself, which I don’t have time to write at the moment. I married well, and he’s incredibly encouraging and supportive.

I’ve spent most of this week working on the “Getting to Know the Women of the Bible” workshop for the Whose Church Is It Anyway? conference. The conference is put on by the Chicago Episcopal Diocese for all those who work in formation with children, teens, and adults. It looks like it’s going to be a great conference. My workshop is on Saturday 1:30–2:45 p.m. Please be praying for me. I’ll be heading out on the train to Mundelein tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., which means I will be heading to bed very soon. I’ll be getting in a couple of hours before the conference starts. This turns out to be a good thing as I still have the slide presentation to do. But the workshop itself and handouts are done.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support this last week. I needed them and felt them. You are wonderful friends, and I’m glad to know all of you.

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Depression Hurts: Only when it doesn't

We’ve all seen the commercials for that one anti-depressant (whose name I can’t remember): Depression hurts. And it does: there can be aches and pains to go with all the emotional pain. But depression doesn’t always hurt. Sometimes it becomes a big, numb void. This is where I’ve been the last three weeks. You get to the point where you just don’t care. And you don’t care that you don’t care. I’ve written about acedia before. Acedia is the absence of care. It’s better known as sloth, one of the seven deadly sins.

This is where I’ve been, and it’s been really bad the last couple of weeks. The thought of doing anything overwhelmed me. Even putting in a load of laundry. Or checking the mail. I have sat on the couch and web-surfed and mindlessly watched TV. I didn’t care if my house was a mess. I didn’t care if I wasn’t working although I am teaching a workshop next Saturday that I still need to get going on. I haven’t even showered everyday. Kathleen Norris recognizes that the ceasing of repetition is one acedia’s first symptoms:

One of the first symptoms of both acedia and depression is the inability to address the body’s basic daily needs. It is also a refusal of repetition. Showering, shampooing, brushing the teeth, taking a multivitamin, going for a daily walk, as unremarkable as they seem, are acts of self-respect.

Moving seems so hard let alone taking a walk. In a week I left home twice. I don’t care if I’m isolated or lonely. I don’t care that nothing is getting done or that I’m not praying or writing. It’s all too much.

Earlier this week I did decide to take charge and do one thing: call my psychiatrist. I saw him yesterday and we talked. Nothing triggered this bout of depression. Everything is going fine. It’s been a good summer. I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling the way I’m feeling. My doctor said sometimes that happens. You have a dip in brain chemistry and need a little help. We decided to increase the dosage of an anti-depressant I’m on to see if that helps. I also have to push myself to get out and to exercise. Because depressed people just like to sit. I got out today. I got my haircut (love it!) and went grocery shopping. I’ve actually gotten out of the house two days in a row. Woot! As Bob used to say, “Baby steps.”

Baby steps. Because I have to start somewhere.

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Want a Side of Guilt with that?

I feel guilty all the time. About everything. This realization came to me last week when I started going through Jen Louden’s The Life Organizer: A Woman’s Guide to a Mindful Year. It’s what I want to let go of: feeling guilty all the time. About everything. Some of things I feel guilty about right now are (and these are just some of the things):

  • Career Women of the Bible book proposal still isn’t done.
  • My workshop for teaching the women of the Bible is nowhere where it needs to be. And I’ve been procrastinating all day.
  • My house is a wreck.
  • I didn’t make it to Trader Joes or the farmers market today.
  • The reason I didn’t make it shopping was I stayed up until after 2:00 a.m. Stayed up too late (or is that too early?)
  • Got up too late.
  • Wasted too much time on Facebook and Twitter.
  • I don’t keep up enough on Twitter.
  • I’m not evangelical anymore. Wonder what my evangelical friends think?
  • I’m not ordained anymore. Wonder what my college and seminary profs and friends think? Or the people I used to pastor.
  • I haven’t exercised.
  • I haven’t done yoga.
  • I shouldn’t worry so much about what other people think (But I do).
  • I don’t write enough.
  • I’m abysmal at keeping up this blog.

And this is just a smattering at what I’m feeling guilty about at any given moment. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t feel guilty about something. I was even a guilt-ridden kid. So I’m wondering how do I go about not feeling guilty all the time, when it’s been a default as long as I can remember? Have you decided to let go of default thought patterns? Where did you start?

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RevGals Friday Five: Child's Play Edition

KathrynZJ says: While traveling with my 4 year old we were both pleased to find a HUGE indoor playground. Now he can maneuver himself around those things no problem but I have found myself at the top level of what amounts to a glorified hamster tube more than once either rescuing an article of clothing or The Boy himself. There was a small part of me saddened to find that I no longer had the convenient excuse to be a kid and go up in the playground, but mostly my aging knees and back were quite happy to skip the experience.

Maybe you are better at it than me, but my first-born, responsible demeanor rarely lets up enough for me to do frivolous silly things – like playing on playgrounds – without a good reason. My friend will stand up in a crowded restaurant and serenade me with an operatic rendition of Happy Birthday. My sister is very good at grabbing the joy in the moment. I seem to need a child to bring it out in me and even then… it takes a lot.

Today’s Friday Five celebrates the spontaneous child in all of us… ar at least the one that we admire in someone else:

1) On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being I can’t do this now I am about to jump into a pit of plastic balls at the mini-mall and 1 being I can’t do this now until I can get all of the fonts on my blog to match – where are you?

I’m probably a 2. Although I like to play, I don’t let myself do it near as often as I should. Probably has something to do with having a cat instead of kids. 🙂

2) What is the silliest/most childlike thing you have done as an adult?

I don’t know if it’s the silliest but definitely my favorite: when I was in my house in Kansas City, I loved dressing up on Halloween and handing out candy to the kids. I really wish our condo would do trick or treating. Love, love, love Halloween and getting all dressed up.

3) Any regrets?

Only that Halloween is once a year.

4) What is the silliest thing you have ever seen another adult do on purpose?

Watching a guy friend in college put his long blonde hair in ponytails, put on a dress, and lip synch “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music.

5) What is something you wish you did when you had the chance?

Learn how to repel. I’ll probably have another chance, but who knows when?

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Abbey of the Arts Poetry Party: What's the Hurry?

“What’s the Hurry?”

All tell me to hurry up
But what is better
Than sun shining on your face?

Every week Christine selects an image and suggests a theme/title and invites us to respond with our poems or other reflections. Add them in the comments section and a link to your blog (if you have one).  Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog.

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Great Article on Depression

Lissa Rankin of Owning Pink has a very informative article up on depression: The Difference between Depression and Losing Your Mojo. She gives you the symptoms of depression, and where to begin if you think you have it. Go check it out. A friend I have known since junior high just lost her son. He committed suicide earlier this week; he was 17. Go educate yourself on the symptoms of depression and how to recognize them, not just in your life, but in the lives of your loved ones too.

Lissa thannk you for writing about these very hard subjects.

(Disclaimer: Lissa linked to my article Depression and Spiritual Direction in this article.)

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RevGal Friday Five: GAMES!

Jan says: In less than three weeks, my family, including children and their partners, will be gathering in Seattle, WA for 12 days. After various days in Seattle sightseeing and in Bellingham seeing family, we will travel to the coast of Washington State to spend three nights in a large rented house. With nine adults (from almost 20 years old and up), I am thinking that we need to have some activities pre-planned–like GAMES! (Any ideas will be appreciated.)

So this Friday Five is about games, so play on ahead. . . .

1. Childhood games?

  • Scrabble
  • Clue
  • Checkers
  • Chess
  • Battleship

2. Favorite and/or most hated board games?

  • I loathe True Blue.
  • My favorite is Balderdash.

3. Card games?

  • Spades or Hearts
  • UNO
  • UNO Attack!
  • Poker
  • Gin
  • Shanghai Rummy
  • Solitaire

4. Travel/car games?

I always read. Tho my sister and I would play a game on who could spot the most out-of-state license plates. Of course that means keeping track of which state you are in….

5. Adult pastimes that are not video games?

We have Taboo!, Scrabble, checkers, Yahtzee, and plenty of decks of cards. You could do some sort of crafts or have a scavenger hunt.

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What I'm Reading

I am working through Problogger’s 31 Day to a Better Blog, which I am hoping will make me a more consistent blogger as well as a better blogger. Today’s assignment is a list blog, so I decided to share with you what I am reading.

Books I Just Finished

Books I’m in Various Stages of Reading

On the four books I’m reading, so far so good. Well, Julia’s book rocks, but that doesn’t surprise anyone does it?

What are you reading? Any books you suggest I put on my “To Read” list?

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RevGal Friday Five: Exercise

Sophia writes: I just got back from an 8 mile bike ride down the beach boardwalk near our home, and was struck with the number of people out enjoying physical activity. Runners, other cyclists, surfers, swimmers, dogwalkers, little kids on scooters….

It’s easy to lose track of my physical self-care in the midst of flurried preparation for a final on-campus interview Monday for a college teaching position in the Midwest (prayers welcome!) and the family move that would accompany it. But each day that I do make time to walk or ride my bike it is such a stress reliever that it is well worth the time invested!

So how about you and your beautiful temple of the Holy Spirit?

1. What was your favorite sport or outdoor activity as a child?

Bike riding and the swing set.

2. P.E. class–heaven or the other place?

I didn’t like it. Too many people looking at me.

3. What is your favorite form of exercise now?

Walking and yoga

4. Do you like to work out solo or with a partner?

I do both. I practice yoga solo and at class, and I just found a walking partner. That’s good because I need the accountability.

5. Inside or outside?

Outside. Of course in Chicago that means 3 months out of the year. 😛

Bonus: Post a poem, scripture passage, quotation, song, etc. regarding the body or exercise.

Let’s get physical, physical, I wanna get physical, Let me hear your body calling…..

I am such a child of the 80s.

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Reflections on Leaving Ordained Life

I recently finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith. I’m so glad I read it. Although we left ordination for different reasons, our experience of leaving overlaps in a lot of places: The slamming realization that you can’t go on. The shame and guilt of not being able to suck it up and go on. The disorientation of what do I do now? Who am I? All those years for what? What will people think? What do I say?

The painful and brutal wilderness after making the decision. The loss of purpose. To her the loss of the institutional power and her collar and the identity it gave her. For both of us the loss of what to do now that we aren’t “chosen.” Handling being one of the masses instead of The Pastor and The Priest. Both of us have religious educations we can’t do much with outside of the church.

I was so excited when I read this in the wee hours a couple of weeks ago:

There was no sense of seeking another position at another church if my problem was with the institution, and besides, I did not want to move. How and where I lived had become more important to me than what I did for a living (emphasis mine).

Yes! That’s me! I have no desire to leave Chicago. I love the South Loop. I love the people. I love my view of Lake Michigan and watching the sailboats on the lake. I love that Grant Park in one block away. I love our condo and our life. To continue to be a Nazarene pastor, I would have had to move. I have felt guilty for that. But I have found someone else who felt the same way. “How and where I lived had become more important to me than what I did for a living.” Yes. For me too.

I also feel called to minister, right here, in the South Loop. This is where I am called to be. This is where I am called to live, to walk, to shop. This where I am called to pastor, to minister, and to worship. I always said flippantly that if The Church of the Nazarene wouldn’t let me do what God called me to do, I would leave. I just didn’t realize how hard, painful, and disorienting it would be. Like Barbara, I didn’t realize how much of my identity was wrapped up in being “a pastor.” I didn’t realize how angry and bitter I would be to realize I spent 13 years working my ass of to be ordained, only to be ordained for four years. Were those wasted years? May be not. It’s nice to know I’m not the only who has felt these things and wondered the same thoughts.

It is time to move on. Like her I love the idea of being part of the priesthood of all believers and the freedom that gives me. And I need to stop being scared of that freedom.

Related posts

A Year of Loss and New Beginnings

(There are affliate links in the post.)

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