Choosing Happiness

Whenever I am depressed/angry/frustrated/overly emotional, my instinct is to sit on the couch, cover myself in a blanket, and watch episode after episode of Gilmore Girls, The Tudors, West Wing, or some other comfort show.  I'm not one of those people who grabs the nearest comfort food and eats; when I am feeling down, I usually forget to eat.  I don't want to leave the couch.  I just want to snuggle with my blanket and my dogs.

Two weeks ago, I was in the midst of one of those moments.  That day, I had met with the ordination committee for a second ordination interview, only to be told for a second time that I wasn't ready, that they would not ordain me.  I was frustrated, angry, and depressed all at the same time.  That afternoon, I'd played Monopoly with Colin and a friend in an attempt to get my mind off of things.  But now I was all alone in the apartment.  Vegging seemed like a fantastic idea.

Vegging was the option I frequently took.  It's easy.  It's comforting.  It allows you to feel better in the moment, to forget whatever it is that's bothering you.  There's nothing wrong with vegging with things are bad.  

But then I looked over to my sewing machine and my most recent project.  It was a peplum blouse that I had eagerly been working on the day before my interview.  I was particularly excited about this blouse, because I'd made it twice before, and was in love with the pattern.  Not only that, but the blouse's fabric was a cute cotton print with bicycles on it.  All that was left was the finishing, my least favorite part.  Buttons, buttonholes, and hems.  Blerg.  

I decided to sew.

It may seem like a small thing, deciding to finish my blouse instead of laying on the couch.   But when you struggle from depression, like I do, and you find yourself feeling down, you have occasionally have a choice.  You can take the comforting route, the easy route, and feel momentarily better.  But I've found that later, I don't feel better at all.  I lecture myself for being lazy.  I think of all the things I could have accomplished.  And all the good feeling I got from snuggling with my dogs and watching Gilmore Girls vanishes.  

Choosing to sew, wasn't simply choosing to do something instead of sitting on the couch.  It was choosing to not let my depression overwhelm me.  It was choosing to push through the bad feelings and not only be productive, but feel productive.  It was choosing happiness.  

Now don't get me wrong - feeling down and being depressed are two different things.  But for someone like me, noticing that moment when you are feeling down and catching it before it becomes something worse can make all the difference.  When you are deep in depression, that decision is not even there.  Sometimes, the depression has already overwhelmed you, and you can't even imagine happiness, even when it is close by.  Choosing to be productive is not an option, because you are drowning in emotions that you cannot control.  But sometimes, occasionally, you are given a gift.  You are given that choice.

And that night, I chose to be happy.  

The Language of Miscarriage

A week ago Thursday, Colin and I sat in the sonogram room of my OBGYN's office, watching as a small, black void surrounding a minuscule white dot appeared on a screen.  The pregnancy sac and fetal pole, our doctor told us.

By my calculations, I was supposed to be eight weeks pregnant, but the baby was only measuring at 6.  Not definitely a bad thing, the doctor told us, but not good.  I was bleeding, too, and terrified.

This Thursday, we sat in that same room and watched as the doctor again performed a sonogram.  There was the cervix, and the uterus.  But that black void and white dot were gone.  By that point, we'd known for a week that our baby had left us.  But it was still so strange to look at that place where it had been visible only a week ago, and to see nothing.

I've thought a lot lately about the language of miscarriage.  "I had a miscarriage," or "I miscarried," women say.  Or sometimes "We had a miscarriage," or "We lost the baby."  That had been my language, too, for our previous two losses.  Though I did not believe that I had done something to cause the miscarriage, the language I used made me the subject.  I lost the baby.  I had a miscarriage.

But this time is different.  This, my third pregnancy and third loss, my experience was different.  The baby was in me for longer.  8 weeks, this time, rather than 5 or 6.  I had a month of knowing I was pregnant, a month of experiencing the symptoms, the pains, the emotions.  A whole month where we thought everything was fine.  And then, last Thursday night, the baby left my body.

I won't be too graphic, but I will say this: I knew that the baby had left me.  I knew it physically.  And in that moment, my understanding of our language of miscarriage changed.  I didn't lose the baby.  The baby left me.  The baby left us.

The medical community has yet another term for this: "spontaneous abortion."  Though our society is very single-minded when the word abortion is used, it does work to explain what happened.  The word "abort" is defined as "to fail, cease, or stop at an early stage."  "Spontaneous," too, is an appropriate descriptor: "without effort or premeditation." It happened out of nowhere.  Unplanned, the baby simply ceased to grow, and left.

That understanding of the miscarriage helps explain my own feeling that I've been abandoned.  I was abandoned, in a sense.  For whatever reason, the baby left my body.  We probably will never know the answer, and knowing the answer won't stop my feeling of abandonment, anyway.

It hurts to be abandoned by someone I'd promised to love and protect.  It hurts to be left.  But it hurts a lot less than thinking I am the reason why the baby left.  It hurts less to say that the baby left, rather than saying that I lost it.

I didn't lose the baby.  The baby left my body.   But it will never, ever, leave my heart.

#1: Mental Health

When I asked friends what topics to write about for my Lenten challenge, the overwealming response was "You already have mental health/depression/anxiety, right?" It does seem like a topic that is on everyone's mind these days. And it wouldn't be fair to say we don't ever talk about mental health. It seems like every few months there's a new push to open up conversation and raise awareness about the rising mental health issues in America.

We talk about the larger issue, yet somehow it isn't okay to talk about our own issues.  According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 26.2 percent of adult Americans "suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. That's 1 in 4 adults. A look at the NIMH's information page on depression alone tells a powerful story. College students and depression. Men and depression. Women. Older adults. High school students. Depression and cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's, strokes. Every day, millions of us are overcome with the inabilility to get out of bed, to leave the house, to ask for help. Every day, millions of us recall the days when we had those same struggles, yet something stops us from sharing our stories.

It isn't okay to talk about your depression at work. If you post about it on Facebook, you're whining and annoying. If you blog about it, future employers might find it. But if 1 in 4 Americans suffer from a mental illness, then isn't it something we need to be talking about? And not just with our closest friends. Not just with our therapists, ministers, and counselors. But with each other?

We weren't created to exist alone in the world. We weren't created to suffer through our problems alone. When God made Adam, God said that it was not good for him to be alone. God created animals, and then God created Eve. I like to think it wasn't just for the sake of procreation. I like to think that God knew we needed one another not just for physical companionship, but also for emotional friendship.

If we are going to talk about mental health in this country, then we can't just talk about it in the abstract. We have to talk about our own personal experiences. We have to share the stories about the days we couldn't get out of bed...and also the stories of that day we did manage to get up and walk outside. We should tell those stories so we can heal, and so we can help others begin to heal.

I was diagnosed with moderate to severe depression my senior year of college, and it has been a part of my life ever since. Some days are great. Some days are not. I've accepted this as a part of my life, at least for now...so why should it be a secret when telling my story might help others?