Growing up

It has been good to meet up with various friends recently.  We have had a lot to catch up on, but end up looking back at the times when we lived in the same place - and whether that was 5 or 15 years ago it is a reminder how much time passes when you are not looking.

My friends seem to have grown up, dealing with teenagers, settling down, having families and that is just those around my age.  They all seem so grown up and responsible whilst I am having duvet days and not managing to feed myself properly without reminders on my phone. I don't feel very grown up a lot of the time.  And yet if I were to look at my life from the outside I would think differently - I have a role as a church minister, and even if I say so myself I have done more than tread water in that role.  I may do that around my duvet times, and too often relying on winging things than hours of deep study, but what is needed gets done.  The other week someone even called me an inspiration!

Home alone you don't notice time passing as much as when there are children around growing through clothes and school years. After a fairly peripatetic life from 18 until I landed here I got used to dating events by where I was living at the time - it must have been in 2006 that X happened because I was in North Wales then....

The years that I have been here in one place and one role all merge together in my appalling memory, so I have not really noticed how much time has passed. But soon it will be time to go through the process to prepare to move on. I am also looking back at patterns of my depressions and other moods since the Big Crash at minister training college and even before - I have an appointment with a psychiatrist in a few weeks in a search for something that will tackle the resistant lows.

It all reminds me that I am in my 5th yr here and am 6 and half yrs since the Crash - and whether fully grown up or not I have certainly done a lot of growing in that time.

Now where's that passport?

Actually I will be due a new one, didn't bother to renew it when it ran out a couple of years ago - not until I knew I would need it, and now I do.  I will be spending the summer in North Carolina in the US of A!

I had thought about applying to the Methodist exchange programme a year or so ago, then shelved the idea when I adopted Gabi - no way would I put her in kennels for 6 weeks when the last time she was in them she was being sent away for good from her last home.  But back in Sept the plan bounced back, and I realised there were other options for dogcare, and so I got the permissions and applied to swap my home and churches with those of a Methodist minister elsewhere.  Then it all went quiet... until this week when I heard about my match.

So for the summer I will be temporary minister to  2 churches on the edge of the town of Asheville at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina, its a hard gig but someone has to do it eh?  Meanwhile their minister and his wife will live here and look after my 6 little chapels - not too tough a gig for him either in this beautiful corner of Britain.

Reeves Chapel, Ashville NC

It is good to have something new and interesting to focus on as the winter blues are bad this year and I am having a lot of duvet time.  But in other news I have had the letter from my referral so Monday morning I will ring them and get an appointment date, I'm ready for new ideas having worn out the GPs options.

For now, the rain has paused so time for Gabi and I to head out for a bit.

New Year resolution - first big decision of 2014

I didn't intend to make any new year resolutions, but then I had to face a decision - and the resolution has come from that.  Three years ago I began a research degree, part-time and at a distance, to look at depression and faith.  Some said I shouldn't and couldn't, I felt and I could and I should.

I still feel the subject is vitally important, and that academically respected voices and findings have a valuable clout.  I also know and have had others confirm that I have the intellectual potential to wrestle with this.  But my depression has been less stable than I imagined and whether from that or the meds that keep it in check my concentration span and energy is simply not up to it, even when I set aside chunks of dedicated time.

So I have decided to withdraw.


Time to shelve the books for a bit


And the resolution?  

That 2014 be the year when I learn to say 'no' to my stubborn pride that doesn't like the idea of losing face or have others say 'we were right'.  Not that either of these is guaranteed except in my own mind.

I  have been helped in this by people in the ecommunity  managed by BPUK (Bipolar UK) - whether or not I have bipolar elements in my depression the people there have shown me that you don't have to stick with the things you decided when you were feeling up and able to conquer the world, and being able to walk away is a sign of strength.

After all the only place where 'I've started so I'll finish' is a rule is on Mastermind, not in real life.

Behind the masks...

This week I have been in various groups where I have heard of the struggles in people's lives.  This reflection is a response to that.
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I stood in the crowds rushing around the shops, I felt like my life was falling apart, the world had drastically changed, so how could everyone wander round as normal?

Then a messenger stopped and stood by my side, she began to point people out –

She is grateful for the winter, no-one questions the long sleeves that cover the bruises, and the bruises of the mind are invisible – but he is always apologetic…..

The man stopping to chat to everyone with a cheery smile is on his only trip out of the week, at home he cares for his mother who needs help 24/7 and in confusion doesn’t know him and gets frightened and angry.

That young woman is picking her way through the crowd carefully, she is terrified of talking to anyone – she feels she is barely holding her mind together, and feels overwhelmed by the most basic of things.

The messenger got quicker –

His every step is agony of pain; she is worried sick about her son; she dreads Christmas since her husband died, and the children live so far away; he lost his job in the cuts this year and the mortgage is behind; and so it went on.

The messenger turned to me and said, ‘This is the normal each one wanders around with, just as you do, and each one looks at the others in awe of how normal they all are and feeling they are alone in the crowd carrying their weight’

I wept seeing the pain hiding under every normal face and action, and for my own pain too.

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Surviving someone's emotional collapse - hints from inside

I see your confusion, the pain of looking on as your loved one crumbles from within and the cloud of chaos engulfs you all.  And then what,  where do you go from here?

Somewhere in your community, usually tucked discretely behind closed doors of course, sometime this week, someone, or lots of someones are going through this.

As one who has lived in the centre of that swirling mist, and visit it still I offer these tips -

1. Don't try to fix us - it is more than solving a jigsaw puzzle, there is no single piece you can find to make the difference.  I know that is hard to understand, and that if there was something you could do you would.  This doesn't have any quick fixes, and we are so caught up with the chaos and the chaos with us that when you try to get rid of the problem it feels like you want rid of us.  I know that is the last thing on your mind, but our thinking gets screwed up.

2. Don't keep asking how we feel, or if we are alright - we all know that things are not ok, we don't need to always talk about it.  And when you ask how we are feeling it can be like the hardest question in an exam, we are often not sure ourselves, at least not in ways we can put words to. And even if we could then we are anxious about saying it out loud - will the raw mess of it scare you, or hurt you?  We see you on the eggshells, and want to reassure you, to find some way of protecting you - so every time you ask how we feel there is so much to work out and it is exhausting.

3. Don't be afraid of being normal with us - we are more than our illness, pretending the elephants aren't in the room is not an option but that doesn't mean they have to be the only thing in the room. We won't be up to mad parties, but we need to be reminded of the variety of who we are.  Without trying to fix us  just talk to us the way you normally would, of football, computers, telly, whatever. We need to hold onto to the normal things whilst the rest spin us dizzy.  And it's good for you too.

4. Pack for a long journey, remembering all you will need too - this is a marathon not a sprint, and one none of us trained or planned for. So take the pace carefully, get all the support you can - we need you, so need you to love and care for yourselves.  We are not well enough to help you, so you will need others, friends, family, professionals - don't be afraid to ask for the help you need.

And there are lights out there, some along the way, and even those at the end of the tunnel. And others are on the path too.  Sometimes we may stop and sit for a bit, sometimes we may seem to double back, that's all ok, all normal - as long as we are together we can cope and hope.

And thank you for being there, and for trying, and most of all for loving us at our messiest.

When I needed a neighbour were you there?

So goes the school hymn, and goes through a range of situations  asking 'were you there?'  'And the creed and the colour and the name don't matter were you there?' comes the chorus.

This comes to mind with an email today from someone about a church member they have visited today, reporting that this person, unable to get out of the house, is disappointed that I haven't been round.

It is not an unreasonable request, after some time in convalescence care beyond our patch she has been home for a couple of weeks now. And it would be just half an hour, to show she is remembered.  'Were you there?'

These are the moments when I feel such a failure as a minister, and as I type my eyes are leaking.  But she and the others I constantly let down don't see that, they don't know about the moments when I am about to phone but realise it is too late, or any other good intentions.

Yes it is true that pastoral visiting is not just for me, and I know of those who are calling on people. And I know that my list of reasons why I didn't get there all this week despite planning to - including depressive fatigued duvet days - are valid and not just the lame excuses I think they sound to others.

But ...  I am not naturally a pastoral visiting person, and I know this is my weakest point. It is the thing I would have top of my 'drop list' when time and energy are squeezed. And because of that it is also where my conscience is most vulnerable to criticism, because it lands on my own self criticisms so it is a double whammy right where I have least objectivity and perspective.

I will visit, and she will get over her disappointment that it has taken so long, and the sun will rise and set and the days go on.  And when I am not tired from having been out all day for last 3 days I will not get weepy over a 'just so you know' email.

For now, it is a stiff drink and bed. Tomorrow is another day.

Labels...

'My name's Helen and I'm.....'

Fill in the gap according to context - single, minister, Gabi's owner, late, lost, depressive ....

Labels are useful, it is a shortcut to what you need to know, or have others know about you. Yes  I am /am not the person you need to speak to. This and not that is why I am here talking to you.

They can be affirming - 'My name's Helen and I'm ordained'
After years of delays, and illness, and times when I thought it would never happen it was a good feeling to reach that point.

They can be releasing - 'My name's Helen and I'm a depressive'
I remember when months after my breakdown 5 yrs ago and finally at the doctors for help someone officially wrote the D word.  I came home strangely happy to have the label, 'I'm not loosing it I'm depressed'  - I wanted to to tell everyone about it.  Oddly looking back over journals of the time, even months before 'crash day' I was referring to being in a depression, and to previous years when similar had happened.  So why it was so significant the day the doctor used I don't know, but it was like a release, permission to declare I was ill person, rather than a failed human.

For others though a diagnostic label is something to be feared within mental health. Conditions are not as neatly measurable as many aspects of physical health are, people are moved between diagnoses as the experts try to work out which label fits best.  And people don't fit in neat boxes - mental health diagnoses have a habit of ending up as x with a hint of y and aspects of a and b - we are all on a spectrum. Well lots of them really - multi dimensional axes covering the many aspects of life.  But labels put us into categories, and categories can divide.  Labels can feed stigma and discrimination.  How many sick notes sent to workplaces have referred vaguely to 'stress' rather than depression to avoid the official label going on file?

Yet, I recall from biology days how important classification is in trying to understand - seeing what is similar between some things and different from others.  And as I am exploring aspects of my depression that might give me an added 'hint of' label that is how I see it.  I won't have changed, treatment probably won't, but the label would help me understand myself better and maybe cope with the ebb and flow of depressive life.