To cope or not to cope?

I have started to be involved in a mental health facility – in many ways it is like a care home for those not needing full scale inpatient care but not considered able to cope at home.  The residents are a mix – some I can see as significantly unwell, but others I wonder why they are not under home support.  I have only had a few visits so far and know my observations are based on brief and shallow encounters, I don’t have - and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to have – details of individual situations except what they choose to share as time goes on.  However it makes me wonder about what it is to have mental ill health and to be judged able to cope at home, or not.

Is there a difference about whether you would be home alone or have live-in support? It must be a key issue if you have a spouse or parent to support you then you are not managing the fullness of domestic life alone – bills, shopping, cooking, someone to encourage you out from under the duvet.

I consider this as someone who lives alone, and struggles with mental health.  As someone who in low times struggles to get proper meals and needs Gabi the dog to nag me into getting out. I have the huge privilege to be in a role as a church minister that gives me the freedom to adjust around my moods. And I have come to accept that effectiveness and busyness are not be the same thing, so give myself permission to do the admin on a laptop from under the duvet, and not expect much in the mornings – unless I really need to be somewhere. (I am much more comfortable with evening meetings).

I have days when I can cope with the complications of domestic life, and enough of the role of ministry.  I have days when I am buzzing with ideas and possibilities – a gift but also potentially a symptom, not always being grounded in reality. I have days when my mood is so low that maybe I could be one of those considered not able to cope alone.  If I had not been in a communal college situation when I had my deepest collapse would I have coped in any way – it was enough of a struggle to make it to the dining room to eat food prepared for me.

What does it mean to be one of those who copes? On one level it is positive, it suggests that I am not as unwell as some others. On the other hand it can be an excuse to deny the needs I do have – by services and by myself – pretending I am not unwell when I am.

Coping is about looking like things are okay when in reality every step is both a struggle and an achievement. When getting a shower and putting the mask on for the outside world costs almost all we have – but others see as merely normal. The skilled observer may see the eyes are dead or the responses pre-programmed – but we are skilled at hiding it and the chance encounter at the local shop is brief enough for us to disguise our pain.  Why? Because to get caught in a conversation about how we really feel, and your theories on what will help, that I have to be polite about – that would demand so much more from us.

So back to those deemed to need the care of the unit – whilst glad to be considered not ill enough for that, I do have a certain degree of envy for those who have permission to not cope, who don’t have to pretend or struggle to cope but have aspects of life happen for them.  An odd position it may seem to some, but maybe others will understand my feeling.

We had hoped - Emmaus Road

My April 'bit' for church newsletters - based on the Emmaus Road Easter story

We had hoped…

On the road to Emmaus the couple walking along tell the stranger what has been happening in Jerusalem and about Jesus’ death, ending with the comment ‘and we had hoped he was the one we were waiting for’.  

It was the Sunday, they had heard the news of the empty tomb – still fresh and unbelievable news, but the confusion of the loss of the hopes they had previously had is still raw. When they started following this Jesus of Nazareth I don’t know what they expected or hoped for but crucifixion was not likely to have been in their thoughts.  So all that had happened had crushed their hopes, even amid rumours of resurrection they say ‘we had hoped….’.

Life and its unexpected events can leave us in situations very different to what we had hoped for or dreamt of. Yes there are different lives we had not considered, even rumours of hope filled lives beyond the difficult times. But we may need space to acknowledge the hopes that have had to be laid by, grief for what might have been is valid, and maybe is needed to help grasp fully what is in its place.

The stranger on the Emmaus Road stays unknown giving them time to tell their story and how they had hoped, gently he opens up their thoughts to new possibilities, and only then in the breaking of bread do they find the resurrected Jesus has been with them.  

God is with us in broken hopes and in learning to hope again.

Celebrating Thomas

After Judas, Thomas is the disciple that gets a bad press - Doubting Thomas - but I don't think that is fair.

It is the day of the empty tomb and in the evening Jesus appears to a group of disciples in a locked room, Thomas we are told wasn't there. Cue questions about his commitment to the group, ideas that he was on the fringe, not in the core cluster.  But people react differently to grief and stress and fear, so Thomas was maybe an introvert, someone who needed a bit of space alone to get his head around all that had happened.  It is okay to take some space away from the crowds, it is okay to gather together with others - neither is an indication of commitment, merely different personalities.

So Jesus appears to the gathered group - from the first accounts of the empty tomb that morning and rumours of resurrection it had been a confusing day. Jesus appears and says 'Peace be with you', they have this encounter that helps them as they try to make sense of all that has happened in the past few days.   They later tell Thomas all about it, and he says he can't believe until he sees, and from this he gained the nickname of Doubting Thomas.

But what if Peter or Andrew or brothers James and John were the ones missing that night? Why do we expect more of Thomas than of any of the other disciples? They are convinced because they have had a direct encounter with the risen Jesus, an experience of seeing the impossible that allows them to believe the apparently impossible. Thomas is not a terrible doubter, but has a normal rational response. We are not designed like Alice in Wonderland's White Queen who believes 6 impossible things before breakfast, and our faith doesn't need us to do that. Thomas is just a normal man asking realistic questions.

It is an encounter with God that draws out our faith, other people's experiences and stories of their encounters have a place but we cannot expect others to take on board a 2nd hand experience.  A  week later Thomas would have his own direct encounter with the risen Jesus, and believes totally- 'My lord and my God'.   He is with the group then, his questions and not yet believing has not separated him from spending time with the others.

Thomas should be celebrated, he shows us important things about our faith - that we can take the time we need, that questions are not a barrier to faith but can be a path to it. That however wonderful our own story is we can't expect it to be enough to create faith in someone, though it may get them thinking. That we are not to be divided by differences in belief, or unbelief - we still travel together.

Marking Easter in the company of depression

Unlike Christmas when the mood of anticipation is ever upward, the Easter journey encompasses a wide spectrum of emotions. The growing tensions as Jesus enters Jerusalem, challenges the authorities in the temple and talks of death. The betrayal by Judas, one of Jesus' inner circle on the Thursday, other friends flee, there is a mock trial and a baying crowd. Humiliation, pain and death for Jesus. Grief, loss and confusion for his friends and followers - and his mother.   

Most of the range of human emotions are here, places to connect with the journey for people facing all sorts of situations. And the traditional Holy Week services encourage us to face all the different stages, to embrace those emotions.

Then after the waiting of Saturday we arrive at the 'first day of the week' - Sunday - and it is all Alleluias, and the proclamation that 'He is Risen' - the tomb is empty and Christ is alive. Wonder, awe and celebration are the themes, but should we forget the pain before? Is it like the claim about childbirth all forgotten in the face of a new life?

For some it seems so - as the churches together gathered midday Friday for an outdoor service a colleague from a different church tradition spoke on the victory of the cross, and how Jesus' death brings freedom from guilt, fear, sin and general misery and a saving from hell. Traditional enough Christian doctrine but to gloss over the suffering of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday felt like a glossing over of the pain of this world. A world that sees bombs in Brussels and Lahore, sees people facing death, sees people feeling despair. The message of the incarnation is that God came to be in this world with us, even to the point of knowing death.   Mere victory speeches take away from this message of God with us, and are like rushing from the entry to Jerusalem with cheers, to Easter morning.

As someone living with depression I find links with the Thursday in the garden, a long night of mental distress for Jesus whilst friends didn't understand and though trying to be with him fall asleep. Others may feel other connections, my point is that the full journey is important.

Yet in the Methodist Worship book the Easter morning prayer of confession says -

The empty tomb is in the shadow of the cross,
and the new life doesn't obscure the cross still present.

If we have fallen into despair
Lord, forgive us

If we have failed to hope in you
Lord,forgive us

If we have been fearful of death
Lord, forgive us

If we have forgotten the victory of Christ 
Lord forgive us

I know from discussing this online that some have found comfort in these words, but for me they feel like a stark rejection of the emotions that we have been invited to share on the journey through Holy Week, and for those who live with those emotions is it a rejection of our experiences too?   In my depression I can feel despair, can lack hope - these are symptoms of an illness not sin to be forgiven.

There are some corners of the Christian church where mental ill health is seen as spiritual not as an illness, one group locally even producing a booklet about the dangers of psychology and psychiatry, and that self pity is a sin of selfishness.  But they are not the majority and I am sure the compilers of the Methodist Worship Book (1999) did and do not hold such extreme views.  Maybe in the midst of depression I am over reacting to words that do not trouble others - but I could not offer those prayers with my congregation on Easter Day, and I wonder what message others like me might hear on what maybe their biannual church visit.

The empty tomb and sighting of the risen Christ on the first Easter are to be celebrated, but those who lived then needed time to understand, and gently Jesus gives them that time over 40 days of encounters to guide and reassure them.  And he showed the marks, even in resurrection glory the pain was not forgotten or dismissed, but part of the new hope

The pastoral visit

As a minister part of my role is to visit, especially those not able to join us at church.  Living with depression, as an introvert and probably with roots in my disconnect from others when bullied throughout school - I find this the hardest thing I face in the job. This is a poem that expresses how it feels when I am unwell and trying to visit -

It’s not you it’s me – the pastoral visit

I come into your home, your space

You welcome me, grateful that I have come

The church has come with bread and wine.

You deserve my attention

Care to the tales you tell

The memories you recall

I turn my face to you

Nod and smile in hopefully the right places

I mustn’t show the scream inside

Don’t let the mask slip

It’s not you it’s me

And this is supposed to be your time

Your time - that I have put off again and again

Denied you my time

Because, because, because…. I am broken

Because my head is full of fuzz

Because though I can do the act from the front

One to one I don’t know the script

People may see me visiting you in your vulnerability

But I am the vulnerable one

And you can unmask me

I feel a fraud – pretending to be normal

When inside is a mass of chaos and the suppressed scream

I want to be home, safe in a duvet cocoon

But finally I have made it here

I sit still, I nod, I break bread

And countdown to when I can flee

It’s not you it’s me

Helen Roberts Feb 2016

All change....

Been away too long, in that time I have moved from my 6 rural churches to 4 churches in West Yorkshire in communities closer to town, and with textile mill heritage, but now commuter villages. There is still enough rural to see sheep in the fields and occasionally meet a tractor, and good walks for Gabi the dog, though hedges replaced with stonewalls. Yet with a big town and ring road within a couple of miles.

I have been here since August for a September start with the churches. I had forgotten how tiring it is when everything is new, the people, the way things usually happen, finding places you are due to be at - rediscovering that it is not miles that affect journey time but traffic.

Gabi and I am settling well, 7-8 months have gone so quickly. The moods come and go too, moving home may allow for a lot of clearing out but you take yourself with you warts and all.

Being in two minds - the voice of insecurity

Feeling vulnerable - my successor visited the churches yesterday. Like me it will be his first appointment as a minister following training, and I suppose a bit of me had been thinking about I had felt at the start.

The 5 years experienced me considering what the nervous new me would have liked to have known, not quite reached the idea of the old hand pegging out the safety net for the new kid on the block - but some confidence in myself.

Then we hear who has been allocated to come, and he visits, experienced business life, good rural knowledge, had lots of experience of different roles in church life, been a school governor..... and all the feedback is that he is likely to be good at the very things I have struggled with.  This is good for the churches and the strength of a regular change of minister - that we have different mixtures of gifts and weaknesses so the next one can balance things out.

It is great news for the churches, but another opportunity for the depressive insecurity to surface - not only does he sound better equipped than when I started out, the niggle starts to suggest he will be better even than the 5 years of learning and growing version of me.

I do know that I have a whole range of gifts, that people have appreciated my ministry here, and we have achieved some things together - it is just at the same time, in the same mind I have these thoughts of insecurity and falling short, that I have been just been muddling along and don't really know what I am doing.

How can it be possible to hold two opposing views in your head at the same time? I don't know, but it is something I have experienced for years.  It seems to be healthier than just believing the voice of negativity, but the positive knowledge is just not enough to drown them out.  This is my experience over many things, and I have been very low all autumn and into the winter.  Knowing that it is the illness not reality doesn't stop the emotions of uselessness and pointlessness, it reduces the risk of acting on those feelings but doesn't stop them settling in, stretching out on the sofa and picking what TV channel is playing - like an uninvited guest you can't get rid of.

Living with two minds seems to be my normal, and it can be hard work.  Days like this are a reminder that although I have left the uninvited guest in one room and got on with living elsewhere, they are still in my house and can make a big noise.