Holy smoke

 

This week, when my small region of the globe officially took the lead as having THE WORST AIR QUALITY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, seems like a great time to do a check-in on mental health. 

Holy smoke (pun intended) - I lost it yesterday. I don’t know what came over me exactly, but I found myself suddenly crying, a spontaneous and unexpected onslaught of tears. I felt like I needed to hug someone or talk to someone or be with someone with an intensity I have never experienced. I was equal parts lonely and sad and I just couldn’t deal with being cooped up any longer. 

With such poor air quality outside, I found myself locked indoors, without the option of running off my angst (a guaranteed endorphin boost), or sinking my gloved hands in the earth, my other tried-and-true mood lifter. While I, like the rest of my region, is thirsting for rain to water the earth and put out all the wildfires that are smoking out our beautiful air, I could not handle the weather forecast before me: rain, every day, for as long as my phone was capable of predicting. We need rain. The earth needs a good soak. But endless moisture? Exchanging the darkness of smoke for the darkness of clouds? I lacked the ability at that moment to cope.

It goes without saying that I take the shift from summer to fall a lot harder than most. I love the changing seasons and a clear fall day in the Seattle area is pretty hard to beat, but the dropping temperature brings about a significant shift in how I spend my days. And it gets me every time, and fills me with dread. I go from spending hours outside in the garden to sitting inside and looking out upon the yard in which I toiled, watching it move toward a winter slumber. I transition from making regular bouquets and playing with flowers, to anticipating what the next growing season might bring. Floral requests come to a screeching halt, and its effects are jolting, as sudden as the first frost. Though I am learning to shift my focus toward growing things indoors (pictured above), I miss being outside in the typically-fresh air. 

Midway into the summer, I shared candidly about my struggles with overthinking. And then I almost instantly regretted it, a classic case of vulnerability hangover. If I lost readers, I’ll never know, but what I do know is that many of you so gently reached out to encourage and share your own experiences. This was so powerful. Even though these past few weeks of accumulating smoke are taking a toll on me (hello, sudden eruption of tears yesterday), I actually have been doing relatively well and wanted to share a few celebrations.

I don’t know who might need to read these words this week, but I’ve learned that when I’m feeling something, someone else usually is too. So I wanted to write a little update, in hopes it’s just the snippet of encouragement your ears might need. Since writing that post in July, I have made a whole lot of changes. I started with a new therapist. I changed psychiatrists, in hopes of finding a medication that worked better for me. I started a new medication. I am also changing to a new primary care doctor, as well as seeing an OB GYN who specializes in women’s hormones. I’m doing short, regular runs (minus during this smokiest of weeks, which brings us full circle yet again to that sudden eruption of tears..are we sensing a pattern?) 

While I might not recommend making ALL the changes all at once, I will say that making these moves has been so beneficial for me. I worried about how hard it would be to start with a new therapist and tell my story all over again. This barrier has kept me from making an arguably needed switch for years. In reality, this was almost a nonissue and my new therapist has equipped me with tools and a new angle for addressing my thought life. We have been able to jump in and get to work almost immediately, combating some common unhelpful thinking patterns. The other day I had an intrusive thought pop up and I actually told my husband that I would need to pause life for about five minutes but that I would be mentally present again shortly. While sitting with him at the lunch table, I pulled out my therapy notebook and worked through the problematic thought and was able to reframe it all on my own, before I informed my husband that life could once again proceed. :) A longer term goal perhaps might be that I am able to address these unhelpful thought patterns without pausing life and jotting things down in my notebook, but hey, progress is progress and I’m thrilled. 

Changing to a new psychiatrist has also been so helpful in bringing a fresh perspective. She has asked really great questions that have helped me identify my root challenge. Is it depression? Or OCD/anxiety? It’s kind of like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg, because they are both so interwoven. But determining that intrusive thoughts are my primary challenge (which has led to depression because it’s so dang exhausting to deal with intrusive thoughts all the time), has helped us choose a medication that better treats the symptoms I’m experiencing. She restarted me on the medication that helped me when I was in 8th grade, and, not surprisingly, I’m having positive results once again. 

There’s so much more I could say but in the interest of time, I’ll try and wrap it up here. I would be lying if I said it was easy making the changes I listed above. It took so much mental energy and time to find new providers that both accepted my insurance and who were a good fit for me. It felt like nothing short of a totally unfulfilling way to spend my kids-in-school hours in the short term. But in the long run? That effort is paying off. Movement is movement, and hopefully eventually it will be in the forwards direction.

I also want to say that if you too are looking at the weather forecast and getting that sinking feeling in your gut, I get it 100%. At the recommendation of my doctor, I dusted off my therapy light last night and you’d better believe you’ll be finding me puzzling in front of it in the early hours of the morning as I drink my coffee and tune into my favorite podcasts. It’s a win-win, really: I get to sit still and do something I love for a full 30 minutes. Every day. Doctor’s orders! (I’m pretty sure your doctor would recommend it too). ;)

Lastly, I’ll share this tidbit that my doctor shared with me: sometimes as humans, we just have blue days. When we struggle with things like anxiety or depression, we tend to hyperfocus on categorizing how everything in our lives fits into those diagnoses. But sometimes we might be blue because we haven’t connected with friends in a while. Or because it’s smokey outside. Or because we are spending so much time doing active work in therapy and we just need a little bit of time sharing our feelings. We might need some downtime. Sometimes it could be hormones. Blue days happen. But so do days filled with sunshine.

Until then,

XO  

I've been (over)thinking...

 

I made a deal with myself. As I type this very sentence, I’m trying to convince myself I don’t have to keep it. I said I would write something and post it. Not because I have something monumental to say, but rather precisely because I feel I don’t have much to offer. I’ve been existing in this space for half of a year already and it’s becoming a rather convenient excuse to quit pushing myself, waiting for words to strike or content ideas to feel more palatable and comfortable. But those days ain’t coming. So I’m showing up and pushing through. She asked me this morning if something happened. To be honest, I had the very same thought as my feet pounded the pavement on my run, mere hours earlier. I almost wish something happened. That would feel easier. It would be more logical. It would explain in a more universal language why I’m at the place I am. But the reality is, nothing has happened that I can pinpoint that tipped the scale and caused my recent bout of anxiety and depression. I didn’t have a clean and neat answer for my therapist. I’m just anxious. And sad. Let’s edit that. I’m not “just” anxious. Heaven knows anxiety is minimized enough in our culture! I don’t need to shrink it down in significance even further. I am anxious. Take away the “just.” When most people think of anxiety, they picture palms sweating and legs trembling. Mine isn’t like that. I don’t have many of the outward symptoms, which, I might argue, makes it a whole lot worse because no one knows it’s happening. Mine looks more like constant, intrusive, negative thoughts that hound me. I wake up sad and filled with dread. I often begin the day working my way through a mental checklist: Am I okay? Am I in trouble? Who have I upset? Who have I disappointed? Do my kids and family know how much I love them? Have I done anything that I should feel guilty about? And this list is just the tip of the iceberg. Thoughts like these pummel me from the moment I wake up. I rise with an intense feeling of obligation to pay penance to someone. I do not know where this idea stems from, as it goes 100% against my theology. But the thoughts still plague. I try to get up before the rest of my house so I can wrestle the negative thinking into better submission. I read a devotional. I journal prayers. I meditate on promises in Scripture about who I am in Christ. I plead with God to help me know I am free and complete in Him. And the thoughts continue to pummel. It’s exhausting and defeating. It takes so much physical and mental effort to get myself to a semblance of “baseline” where I am able to function and take on the day. My morning exercise gives me a much-needed boost of endorphins that helps soften the blast of the intrusive negative thoughts. I found great encouragement in Brene Brown’s most recent book, “Atlas of the Heart,” where even she, a well-renowned and respected professional, shared that she has to exercise daily to get to a healthier baseline. Maybe I’m not crazy after all? Back to this morning. My therapist asked if something happened. She has watched me fall apart this summer. These struggles are not new. I have wrestled with intrusive thoughts for over 2 decades. But they come in waves and I have bouts where they are less impactful, and bouts like the present when I feel stuck and nonfunctional. Is it overstimulation? Exhaustion? Lack of alone time? Cumulative effects of raising 3 kids and trying to preserve a healthy marriage in a never-ending pandemic? Some past trauma coming to the surface? Maybe someday I will know. But I don’t have a nice, logical way to explain myself to others: “Because of ________, I’m struggling.” My therapist also asked me this morning if it would help to know that others have thoughts like mine, that most moms, for instance, worry about whether their kids know how much they are loved. I wanted to push back, partly to validate for myself the severity of these thought intrusions. At the same time, it was so very helpful to be reminded that I’m not the only one. So here I am, sharing where I am at outloud, in case you too are feeling alone in a mess of thoughts. I don’t have great solutions (yet), but I’m showing up here and (mostly) willing to be vulnerable. It’s always hard for me to write hard stuff without wrapping it up with a nice and pretty bow. But I’m leery about saying something that feels like a “Jesus bandaid.” I have often been handed these harmful words by well-intended, fellow Christians: Just believe more and it will get better. You aren’t trusting enough. Frankly, those sentiments can be added to the intrusive thought pile that only serve to make the problem worse. What I will say is that it is possible to love Jesus, long to live free of anxiety and have more faith AND YET STILL BE ANXIOUS. I may not like it, but this wrestling of mine is keeping me closer to Him and I am committed to keep bringing this burden to the feet of Jesus, praying for a clear way forward. One last thought. If you are reading this and you don’t personally struggle with anxiety or depression, but you love someone who does, here are some helpful words you might consider saying to encourage them: You are doing a good job. I’m thinking of you. I love you and care about you. I am here. You aren’t too much. You aren’t crazy. They don’t need your solutions. They just need your presence, prayers and care in the midst of the mess. XO.

The girl who couldn't believe enough (OCD story part 5)

(If you are just joining, this is a continuation of a story I'm working on about a young girl in a very tumultuous phase of her life. It will make more sense if you read the first posts here and here and here and here, and then return to this post for part five.)

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Though many of my anxieties consumed me, the ones that tormented me most were those involving my faith. It was as if overnight, all the things I’d previously accepted with child-like conviction as truth, suddenly came into question. I agonized over my salvation. I wanted to go to heaven (or, more accurately, I desperately didn’t want to go to hell). I was not questioning my faith because I was a skeptic. Rather, my mind grew plagued with worry, that perhaps somewhere along the lines, I had misunderstood something, or, even worse, maybe I didn’t believe enough. How was I to know? I questioned whether I was going to heaven, obsessed over the steps I must take, the things I must believe in order to go there when I died. I was petrified that I was missing something or not believing “right” enough.

I plagued my parents with my faith questions. I imagine that at first, they were receptive, excited that their daughter had taken an interest in better understanding her faith. But soon my obsession with making sure I was going to heaven began to monopolize our days. My mom remembers that I would follow her around the house, often sobbing, needing her reassurance that I knew everything I needed to, that I was understanding correctly. She said it was difficult to even take a shower on some days, because I wanted her available at all times in case a gripping worry struck that required her reassurance to diminish its urgency.

I recall one morning, laying strewn across my parents’ bed, overcome with tears. My dad had already left for work; he was gone before the sun rose on most days. My mom was on the other side of the wall next to me, in the shower, seeking solitude, I’m sure. I had been banned from entering the bathroom after spending the morning following her around, peppering her with questions about how to be sure I was going to heaven. In this particular moment, my inquiries felt more urgent than anything in my life ever had. I remember it feeling like torture, wondering how she could leave me out here, fearful and desperately crying. I remember thinking, “If I die right now without her answering this question, I could go to hell.”

I needed answers, answers that had already been given to me hundreds of times before, yet they never provided the comfort I was after. Like an incessant itch that is only relieved when scratched but then grows even worse still, I longed for reassurances, but they came without lasting solace.

Days of “faith crisis” turned into weeks and, eventually, my questions grew so incessant and overwhelming that my parents gave me a notebook, with the aptly-named title, “Kelsie’s Middle School Struggle” scrawled across the front. They told me to begin writing my faith worries down in it, hoping that by writing down my questions and their answers to them, I could begin referring to this notebook when a worry struck, rather than trailing my mom obsessively around the house in tears. They set specific blocks of time when we could discuss my questions and go over what I had written in the notebook. They were attempting to spare their sanity; I thought they were heartless, “abandoning me” in my greatest hour of need.

I came up with a 5-bullet-point list of things I must believe in order to be saved that I penned in my journal under the bold heading “To get to heaven.” I committed it to memory and repeated it to myself whenever I felt worried about my salvation.

“Believe that God exists.
Believe that I’m a sinner.
Believe that because I’ve sinned, I deserve punishment.
Believe that Jesus died on the cross and took all the punishment for all of everyone's sins. Believe that He came back alive and is alive today and will be alive forever.

Believe that God exists.
Believe that I’m a sinner.
Believe that because I've sinned…”

“Then I just needed to trust Jesus with child-like trust, to get me to heaven by how he died and took the punishment for all of everyone’s sins!”

I wrote things like “that’s all!” and “according to the Bible” in the margins of my notebook and drew arrows pointing toward my 5-point list. This was straight-forward and simple! No need to worry about it anymore now that it's recorded in the notebook!

At first, having answers to my questions in writing did help to alleviate some of the gripping urgency I felt. But my anxieties would not let up. They were constant, day after day after torturous day. Each little step we took to try and alleviate a worry helped only briefly, until my next obsession surfaced. It was like a game of “Whack-a-Mole.”

The root of my questions were less theological in nature and more reassurance-seeking. Queries like “How do I choose God to be my Savior and mean it?” and “How do I know I want God to be my Savior?” began filling the pages of my notebook. And even when I did pen a strictly theological question that my parents answered with scriptural reasoning and Biblical reference, I wasn’t satisfied. It was more of a doubt in myself and a mistrust of my own mind than a mistrust in God.

Soon, a new worry surfaced. Since I was the one writing both my questions and my parents’ answers in my notebook, how could I be sure my parents had actually said the words I’d written? What if I was confusing dreams with reality? Everything in the notebook was penned in my own handwriting and this sent me on a new spiral. I began to doubt whether any of the conversations with my parents had actually taken place. Could I even trust my own memory?

I went back through my notebook and peppered it with little notes and arrows stating, “Mom said!” or “Dad said!” in hopes that they would help me truly KNOW that the words I had written were said and affirmed by them. Their truth felt like greater truth. The right truth. The trustworthy truth. I just couldn’t trust myself.

I was aware that it was unreasonable to question my memory. I knew the conversations had happened, yet it was as if I needed my doubt. My brain was operating in a state of constant overdrive.

It is difficult to put into words the experience of knowing in your mind that your behavior is absurd, yet be compelled to go through with the behavior anyway, in order to feel better in one's body.

This, in a nutshell, is OCD.

And all these questions recorded in my notebook, were my desperate cry for help.

The girl who seemed so sad (OCD story part 4)

(If you are just joining, this is a continuation of a story I'm working on about a young girl in a very tumultuous phase of her life. It will make more sense if you read the first posts here and here and here, and then return to this post for part four.)

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Next came the confessions and my parents received an earful. In the same way I felt an undeniable urge to say “I’m sorry” for my misdemeanors, I was sure to tell them every potential wayward behavior of mine, accidental (which was most often the case), or intentional. I couldn’t carry the weight of my wrong-doings alone. I needed someone to share the load and reassure me that I/we/it was going to be OK, that I wasn’t a horrible person. I told my parents when I accidentally bumped into someone. I told them when my swinging arms accidentally clipped the wall in the hall, and how, though I’d run my hand over the surfaced where I’d made contact repeatedly to check and ensure there were absolutely no marks, I was concerned that I may have chipped the paint. I confessed to them when I apologized to a sibling and “might have not actually meant it.” I had something to confess to them at all times. My mind was plagued with concerns and burdens and I had to get them out. Sharing them with someone provided a degree of relief, but the consolation was only momentary before I was tormented with fresh guilt over other wrongdoings. 

This too was a manifestation of scrupulosity. The International OCD Foundation describes Scrupulosity (also known as Moral OCD) as a form of OCD that involves religious or moral obsessions. Common obsessions include severe anxiety over whether one has sinned, extreme focus on maintaining purity and behaving morally, excessive worry about going to hell or death. But I’m getting ahead of myself so I’ll leave this here to whet your appetite for future content. 

My mom’s memory was jogged as she read through these stories I’ve been sharing about my OCD experience. She remembers that she and my dad did have concern about my well-being prior to age 13, beginning as many as 2 years earlier. They recall that it was during a solo trip to Hawaii in celebration of their anniversary that their very first red flag was raised. It was November of 1995 and I was 11 years old and my grandparents had come to stay with us for the week. My parents have always been very dedicated to pouring into their marriage and one of the ways they did this was by traveling together regularly throughout my childhood. They tried to take trips alone every year, so this was a fairly routine occurrence for us. Even still, we never liked it when they left so my mom always went out of her way to leave us special envelopes to open each day of the week that they were gone. They were filled with notes or stickers or a special prize to help diminish our feelings of homesickness for them. They would also usually call once or twice during their time away to say “hi” and to check in. I always really missed my parents when they were gone, but on this particular trip, apparently my level of emotion and other behaviors reached a new extreme. 

We always loved it when my Dad’s parents came to stay with us. They raised six kids of their own and were some of the most even-keeled, generous and capable people I know. For most of my childhood that I can remember, they did not own a home. Instead, they possessed a small Toyota pick-up truck which they used to haul their house-on-wheels, a rounded white camper trailer with a thick, blue stripe down the side. They spent their retirement traveling all around the country, stopping for lengthy periods to serve at different Catholic Missions around the United States and down into Mexico. Many of our big family vacations growing up were built around trips to visit them wherever they were based at the moment, Florida, Tucson, and a small fishing village called Guaymas, Mexico. When they weren’t serving huge vats of rice and beans to those in need, my grandparents were rotating their way around the state of Washington to spend time with each of their kids, and help them with various house projects, babysitting needs, or to welcome a new grandchild into the world. 

They weren’t ones to raise controversy. From what I’ve been told, they were the type to state their concern only when the decision was major and life-altering. And then once they had made their opinion known at the onset, they moved on and accepted and supported whatever decision you chose. I know of two major decisions my parents made that were hard for them: the first was when my parents got married and my Dad left the Catholic church. The second was when they opted to homeschool us kids. Organized homeschooling was only in its infancy when my parents made the decision to educate us in that way, and my grandparents were uncertain about how successful our learning would be. My parents like to tell me how I helped evaporate their skepticism instantly when, as a mere 4-year-old, I grabbed the latest copy of Reader’s Digest Magazine off the coffee table in front of them and began reading it aloud. They had less doubts after that.

All this to say, my grandparents didn’t speak up unless they felt it absolutely necessary. I wish they were still alive so I could ask them for more specifics about what went down during this trip that caused them to ring the alarm bells. I know I cried a lot. I remember taking a break from my tears when I was kept busy or distracted, but the waterworks would quickly resume the moment I was alone with my thoughts again. I used "missing my parents" as an explanation for my distress.

My grandparents knew how valuable my parents’ time away was and so were always careful not to put any hiccups in it. But on this particular visit, my behavior concerned my grandma enough that, when my parents called for a casual check-in, she told them that she was extremely worried about me, that I wasn't okay. These are never the words anyone wants to hear, particularly a couple trying to savor and enjoy a kid-free anniversary trip. 

Upon their return, my mom remembers that I was perplexed with anxiety, voicing frequent questions about our faith and what happens after we die. She figured that, because my grandparents were Catholic and we were not, some conversations must have taken place in her absence to elicit this seemingly newfound worry within me. The differences between our faiths were likely confusing to me and my parents chalked my anxiety up to a natural struggle to exist in the dissonance. 

My mom asked me a few weeks ago if I remember any sort of conversation with my grandparents that upset me and set me off down this path of worry. At times, I’ve wondered the same. I honestly don’t recall any spiritual conversations with my grandparents. And even if there were some, I know they aren’t what “caused” the extreme wrestling with faith-related topics that was just around the corner. Sure, perhaps a conversation could have triggered the development of the disorder that was already lying dormant in my genetics. But it was already there, bound to manifest itself somehow sooner or later. With OCD, things just aren’t as simple and easily explainable as we want them to be. 

The girl scared of 4-letter words - (OCD story part 3)

(If you are just joining, this is a continuation of a story I'm working on about a 13-year-old girl in a very tumultuous phase of her life. It will make more sense if you read the first posts here and here and then return to this post for part three.)

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Along with my newfound knowledge of the bird, it was during these early teens that I also grew enlightened with other vocabulary in the English language, namely profanity. In the same way I grew terrified of using my middle finger inappropriately, I now had a fresh fear of accidental swearing. Though no obscenity ever left my lips, I lived in a state of perpetual worry that perhaps one had slipped through without my knowing. 

I also had a rising concern about the possibility of accidentally cursing in my head. This fear wasn’t the traditional series of events that most might imagine: stub toe and then think curse word. It was more subliminal. Now that I had knowledge of these words, they would occasionally surface from my subconscious, and run their way through the forefront of my mind like subtitles across the bottom of a TV screen. Though I had as much control over them as I did preventing myself from thinking the word “tree” when I looked at a forest, I felt excruciatingly guilty and disgusted with myself for “allowing” them to be a part of my thought life. My mind continued to taunt me, like a broken record caught on a bar I’d rather skip altogether.

Curse words and using God’s name in vain, for me, were two of the world’s greatest evils. There was little in life that horrified me more, in these naive early years of privilege, where I was shielded from life’s real and true abominations. Part of it was my legalism, but I realize now that a large part of it was also my OCD at play. I was the kid who marched around on my high horse, correcting the foul-mouthed “rebellious” girls on my city-league basketball teams, requesting they please replace their expletive choices with words like “heck” and “gosh.” From my seat of judgment, I thought I was doing them a favor. 

I remember the one and only time I ever heard my Dad say the words, “Oh my God.” It is one of my most vivid childhood memories, which now said aloud, feels laughable. In the vast array of all occurrences that could be preserved and treasured into permanent memory, mine would be about the one time my dad slipped up with his words in my presence. I say this not to emphasize the gravity of the misdemeanor in the grand scheme of things, but rather to highlight the fragility of my mental state when my OCD symptoms were at their height. Everyone (myself included), was maneuvering through a world made of up of thin shapes of glass. One wrong move could result in a total shattering. The only option was to tread lightly, stay the course, do right, be right, or be crushed beyond repair. There was only black and white, not even a sliver of gray.

We had just concluded dinner and we were in the kitchen, rinsing dishes under the glowing fluorescent lights overhead. The phone rang and I answered it in the way I had been taught, greeting the caller and identifying myself by both my first and last name. It was one of my cousins, a student at our town’s university at the time. 

“Well hello Kelsie Wilson,” he chuckled, gently jabbing at my formal phone introduction, as many familiar callers often did. He asked to speak to my dad and I obliged his request, handing the receiver over. 

I went back to the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, occupying my hands while my ears stood at attention, eavesdropping on the half of the conversation I could hear. My dad hummed in acknowledgement of what was being said for a couple of minutes and then it happened. Without warning, he said it.

“Oh my God!” 

It shattered the silence and echoed repeatedly through my head. My hands froze under the flow of the faucet and my back went instantly tense. If I had been holding a plate in that moment, I’m sure I would have released it to clatter down upon the dishes below it. It was as if all time had stopped. 

Certainly I had misheard! My dad, a Scripture-reading, Bible-believing, church-going man of God would not allow such shameful words as these to leave his lips. “He must have said ‘gosh,’” I tried to reassure myself. I was unable to handle the alternative, that my dad, the one I admired and looked up to, had disobeyed one of the 10 commandments, one I viewed to be up there with the world’s greatest evil, right in front of me. 

“He would not have said that,” I thought, still trying desperately to make sense of the situation. “He knows using the Lord’s name in vain is wrong.”

No matter how much I tried to defend him, I knew in my heart that he had indeed said the forbidden phrase. I excused myself from dinner clean up and ran to my room where I threw myself on my bed and cried. The unleashing of emotion that followed was disorienting and hard to describe. To anyone else, it wouldn’t fit the crime. But for me, it was devastating. In my extreme black-and-white-rule-following reality, I couldn’t reconcile what had happened. I was terrified about what this misdeed would mean for my dad, but more so, I was devastated and unable to handle how my image of him had been crushed. Certainly he had raised his voice and said harsh words and been an imperfect parent in all sorts of ways beforehand, but this was somehow different in my mind’s eye. It seemed more explicit and I felt sick to my stomach.

I remember my mom coming to me in my room to see what was wrong. I remember crying to her, in utter devastation that my dad would ever say such a thing. I think what startled me most was her lack of surprise. She was always one to cringe and gasp during each patch of foul language in movies and on TV, but in this moment, she seemed to be shrugging it off. How could she? Did she not realize the gravity of the sin? In her attempt to comfort me, she told me about how my dad was around a lot of people at work who used that phrase with great frequency. 

“When you are around people who say these things, they can get stuck in your mind, and can slip out without your knowing,” she told me. 

Sure, this made logical sense but was she even hearing me?! Dad had used the Lord’s name in vain! I wanted her to join me in my horror, to help me normalize and make sense of these extreme thoughts that were whipping through my mind. Instead, she held her line, acknowledged the incident for what it was, and then was ready to move on. In retrospect, totally unbeknownst to both of us, her response was likely my first dose of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a form of psychotherapy now widely used to treat patients suffering from OCD.  

I am uncomfortably aware of the black and white, judgemental nature of my thinking here in this story. I hesitated in sharing it because now it feels so shameful. It is difficult to imagine ever viewing a situation as severely as I did. But, with my dad’s permission, I’m sharing it now because I think it so clearly illustrates the extreme rigidity I operated under. My mind could only see the world via a lens of two options: right or wrong. There was no space for gray. What I was suffering from was a specific and extremely messy form of OCD known as Scrupulosity, which I will dive into more thoroughly in future posts. Stay tuned.

I'm still here!

As I dust off the ol' blog, my computer indicates to me that I managed a whopping ONE blog post all summer long (since MAY actually, if we are being particular...) which either means a) I was overwhelmed by the presence of three children and then some all day every day over the past 3+ months b) I was busy working on other projects c) we were gone all the freaking time or d) I was struggling with my own well-being and went totally internal or e) all of the above. 

If you answered "e," you score 100% on this here pop quiz. I'll suffice it to say that I am extremely glad the Summer of 2019 is officially behind me! We started off well but then it was pretty much all downhill from there. Our summer lacked both margin and healthy structure, and add onto that, the fact that I was suboptimally medicated and it was a recipe for disaster. I was anxious, unable to make decisions and my thought life was in the toilet. OCD had once again taken residence in our household and, most annoyingly, this time I couldn't even assign the blame to my kids.

So that was super fun. But I'm happy to say we have righted the ship! I am now on a new medication and it's working (halleljuah!) and I find myself cheerful and peppy again EVEN ON CLOUDY DAYS...which is really saying something for anyone who knows me well. It's miraculous and honestly so very lovely.

Do you want to know what else is so lovely? Having three kids in school!!! I thought I would be so mopey and sad sending my baby off to school but the truth is, second only to getting married and having kids, sending three kids off to school is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I mean that in the best and most loving possible way. Obviously I love them dearly. I love them when they are in my care. And I also love them when they are in the care of someone else. The combination is the one of those two options that I would highly recommend. Only time will tell if loneliness eventually sets in but right now I'm thrilled to be basking in margin (cleaning my window gutters!), holding myself to some regular writing exercises, expanding my garden, working out regularly, leisurely planning a dinner menu for the week (not scribbling down a quick list in the parking lot of the grocery store before I go in), and catching up on a decade's worth of projects that I have fallen behind on (like vacuuming the ceiling cobwebs and scrubbing the doors). 

I'm not sure what my presence here on the blog will look like in the coming season with other writing projects I have in the works but I'm hopeful I will still be able to use this space for some creative writing ventures as well as a venting place to find solidarity when motherhood kicks my booty. I would also love to log some new recipe favorites...but we can't have it all. ;)

The hardest best thing

There was a time in my life when weeks like this one would have slayed me. Riding the roller coaster of therapy is brutal. Author Glennan Doyle writes about life being “freaking brutiful,” an intertwining of brutal and beautiful. That’s about how I would describe wading through the process of therapy. It’s freaking brutiful.

I used to think those in therapy were the ones most broken. Now, with three consecutive years of the stuff securely under my belt (plus all the “bonus” sessions with my kids), I realize how incredibly wrong I was. Therapy may be for the broken, simply because brokenness is synonymous with being human, but I believe it's those who face their brokenness head on, they are the some of the world's strongest. They are the bravest, the ones with the grit and endurance, the ones not just longing for healing, but going after it. They are willing to get down into the thick of the mess and do the hard and dirty work, the work that is brutiful.

They are the ones who are unwilling to stay the way they are.

And that, my friends, is beautiful. 

To those of who have gone before, I commend you. You are the definition of hardcore. To those of you currently in the trenches, solidarity! Stay in it. I'm (pretty) sure the "other side" of all this tough business is worth the work of getting there (if you get there before me, please confirm). And for anyone wondering if perhaps maybe it's time to do some work with a counselor, the answer is almost undoubtedly yes. 

It’s no secret that our family has been forking over a huge portion of our income toward this business of “addressing our crap” (also known more eloquently by most as “going to therapy”). It’s been one of THE hardest best things I personally have ever done, third only to marriage and parenting...which are two of the reason I’m in therapy…but I digress. 

Perhaps you remember back in the fall when I wrote about the struggles we were facing with two of our offspring? And then I boldly (stupidly?) stated we were “just waiting for kid three to show his cards” and then we’d get him enrolled in whatever form of therapy he needed? Why do I open my Big. Fat. Mouth? 

So we are 5 for 5 over here when it comes to therapy needs now...which is a perfect score, if anyone is keeping track (where do I pick up my prize??) When our third kid received his diagnosis, our pediatrician kindly made an attempt at consoling me by highlighting the hereditary nature of the various players in our household (OCD, anxiety, ADHD). 

“They are just like eye color," she told me. "No one is to blame. These things are inherited in the genes, just like tall stature or brown hair.” 

Awesome. 

“Sorry kids,” are the only words of comfort I can offer the offspring. The genes be STRONG in this clan.

Though at times, addressing each of our specific needs has been challenging and overwhelming, I’m so grateful for the massive number of tools “doing our work” together has equipped our family with along the way. In fact, we now have so many tools, we had to trade in our tool belt for a full blown tool shed in which to store all these dang tools we-never-knew-we-needed-but-now-we-can’t-seem-to-live-without. And we are all the better for it. I'm super proud of us. I stand witness to some really amazing change and powerful areas of growth. 

Technically, as the mother and in-house transportation and sit-in supervisor for all the these appointments, I have been the “lucky recipient” of all sorts of extra, “free” kid-sized therapy sessions to supplement my own. Quite honestly, sometimes there are more take-home nuggets when they are presented at a grade school-aged cognitive level. We have a vast supply of amazing resources available to us that are helping our kids conquer their struggles at such young ages. What a gift that they get to obliterate their mental beasts when they are still tiny, before they grow and invade and take over their minds and tell them all sorts of lies, reinforced over decades. It makes me teary just to think that they might not have wrestle with their struggles to the degree their dad and I have. 

The kids' progress is easy for me to see since I'm one step removed as the observer. But my own progress? Though sometimes it's harder to identify, I know I am changing too. So, as this new year launches, it felt like a valuable exercise for me to take a minute and identify just a few of the many things this brutiful process has been teaching me. I also know that vulnerability can work as a powerful adhesive to bind us together. I am not alone in my struggles and so I'm calling them out aloud in case one of you whispers "me too." 

I will start first with the things that therapy has revealed that have been more painful, the things that perhaps, at first blush, I would rather not have known: 

I struggle with extreme rigidity.

I am a very black and white thinker. There is always a right and a wrong. Your side and my side. The blameless and the one at fault. (And for the record, usually he is the problem, not me, of course).

I continue to struggle with a list of OCD tendencies longer than my daughter’s (who has been in intense treatment for her OCD for 5 months and counting).

I have anxiety. Not a heart-racing, panic-attack or scared-of-heights form that we often think of. But more of the crippling thoughts kind where I am perpetually worried I’m not doing enough, saying enough, being enough. My mind often torments me.

Since I seem to be feeling particularly open, I’ll throw this one out there: I have a lot of sexual baggage. Like a lot a lot. To this day, I am still fighting against the sex-negative messaging of my past. This is originally why therapy was initiated. But, as I’m told is common in therapy, one thing led to another and we’ve had to peel back layer after layer after layer after layer to work on adjusting the faulty foundation before we’ve been able to do more focused work in this area. 

I struggle with anger. I identify wholeheartedly as a “Type One - Reformer” (and perfectionist!) on the Enneagram but it always made me frown a little to read that one of my bigger struggles as a “Type One” was anger. I’m not really a yeller, I thought. I don’t really feel like an angry person. Sure, sometimes I certainly lose it with the kids but I don’t rage like some people I hear about. Very recently, I have realized there are other forms of anger, not just the explosive, yelling variety most of us picture. There is also the slow boiler, the one who gradually and quietly comes to a simmer. She doesn’t even realize it has happened until she is so seeped in bitterness and resentment she could swim in it. This is the kind of anger I identify with. 

I keep tally. Of everything. Tit for tat. I’m gung ho about fairness and equality, when the scale isn’t tipping in my favor.

I do much better “coming to realize” my faults on my own than when someone else calls me out on them. When I am critiqued, I’m prone to deflection and blame-shifting.

I work with a distinct ceiling above me. I only take on what I know I am capable of (and typically only the things I know I will also be successful in). My husband has no such ceiling. The sky’s the limit! Rarely does he take on something within his current capabilities. He is ever game to phone a friend and call in for reinforcements when he wants something done and doesn’t know how to do it. This makes doing remodeling projects together impossible (so far). I always have to bow out because his process is so different from mine. But we are working on this! Let’s just take a moment of silence in honor of the fact that WE NOW AT LEAST ARE AWARE THAT THIS IS HAPPENING. This is big, y’all. Stay tuned...we might have a little endeavour coming down the pipes.

This is the just the short list of some pretty tough, hard-to-swallow realities that therapy has brought to my attention. But it most certainly hasn’t all been hard. There’s the beautiful too. 

My time in (all the) therapies has also revealed an entire host of things that I’m incredibly grateful for like that: 

I married a really amazing person. 

I am capable. 

I am resilient. 

People enjoy my company (I really want to delete this one because it feels conceited to say so aloud but after a lifetime of battling insecurities and wondering if I was accepted and desired anywhere, it feels significant to name. Perhaps my next step will be to name it sans disclaimer?)

I can do hard things. 

I can change. 

I am so much stronger than I ever realized.

I freaking don’t give up. 

I can sit in discomfort. And it gets easier the more times I do it. 

I am a good enough mom. 

My kids know I love them.

I deserve pleasure. 

It is OK for me to take breaks.

Self-care is not selfish. It is exactly as it reads - the act of caring for ourselves. I am a mess without it. 

I can have an area that I need to work on and it doesn’t make all of me a failure. (This one is still a challenge but I’m working on it).

Sometimes “doing the work” looks like sitting on the porch in the sunshine, reading a novel. Seriously!

I have a right to everything I feel.

I have a voice. And it matters. 

I think I might be a bit of a feminist - who knew?!

I have HOPE!!!!!

There is power in naming and recording, seeing where one once was, and how far one has come. Especially when things feel slow and arduous, and you can't tell if the needle is inching up the scale. Even when prone to despair, the exercise of making a list like this of “things learned” serves as a reminder of all the movement, no matter how subtle. 

This process, it's freaking brutiful.  

Sheesh

Behind all the pretty pictures is a whole heck of a lot of hot mess, right?

We are launching into fall at lightning speed and I feel a bit like that kid who is racing out the front door on one foot, folder clenched in jaw, attempting to stuff his sock-clad other foot into his Sketcher only to see the school bus whiz past his house and fade off into the distance without him aboard. Anyone else out there?

Anyone?

The bus has passed the station and many days I’m unsure whether we made it aboard or not. Somehow my summer-induced amnesia caused me to delusionally forget that with school comes scheduling and homework and exhaustion and emotions upon emotions and we are IN IT deep right now, it seems.

We have one kid who is struggling to stay focused and who is rapidly growing discouraged. She forgets everything (like imagine your definition of “everything” and then triple it and you might be halfway to my definition of “everything”) and I’m pulling my hair out on most days trying to coax (okay fine, drag) her through life’s systems and routines like putting dirty clothes in the hamper, shoes on the shelf, and doing one’s homework. For the third year in a row. It feels like murder every freaking day for both of us and I’m pretty sure one of us won’t be alive next week if we can’t come up with a solution and PRONTO. On the positive, she is playing soccer this season and we are two weeks in and she hasn’t even asked to quit yet. This is the longest she has stuck with something that requires moving her body for any length of time, so I will take it and run with it, even if she does volunteer to “take a break” anytime her coach needs to sub out during a game. This girl is precious and she’s amazing and she’s struggling. I’m not blind to the prevalence of hereditary health disorders in our family so on my desk you will find a fresh packet of papers from her pediatrician, awaiting our call to pursue further evaluation to see how we can help this sweet kid. Sigh. We are IN IT.

Then we have another kid who is launching into her 5^th year of serious struggling. Yikes. Has it really been 5 years? FIVE years? NO WONDER I feel the way I do! She has ping-ponged around through various therapies, all marginally helpful, but just this past year, we finally landed on one that I’m praying will change our world. We are working with some amazing doctors at Seattle Children’s and, though we’ve bounced around through a couple different clinics over the past year, I undoubtedly see the hand of God in the timing of all that has come together for us.

This past spring, after a couple of months of sleeping hell, we got into a phenomenal parent/child anxiety course that I mentioned in a post here. We learned a lot of fantastic, and, not to mention surprising, cognitive behavioral therapy tactics for addressing anxiety, and soon we had a kid who could successfully put herself to sleep again without hours of crying and parental intervention. (I thought I paid my not-sleeping-through-the-night dues during her infancy. Sheesh was I ever wrong!) We naïvely believed we had achieved shalom in the home again, so much so that we actually declined an entirely UNHEARD OF opening for one-on-one therapy with one of the doctors at Children’s. It seemed crazy to take that appointment from someone who really needed it. We were experiencing our own form of “remission” and so we said “Thanks but no thanks. But can you please call us in eight weeks to make sure we haven’t changed our minds?” That last interjection illustrates that, despite temporary brain-lapse moments which I continue to refer to as “baby brain” five years post, we do have a sliver of intelligence left after all.

PRAISE THE LORD IN HEAVEN ALMIGHTY that Children’s willingly accommodated our lofty request to “call us later to check in.” Sure enough, summer started off with more or less smooth sailing. Then July came roaring in and I started to witness more frequent concerning behaviors in our child that left me twinging. They hit really close to home. Too close. So close that I began experiencing huge waves of déjà vu. After one such encounter, I called Graham at work and told him what had gone down. “Crap,” was his only response. I think both of us knew then and there the trajectory we were on but only time would tell.

We were a hot steaming mess by the time August rolled around but thankfully Children’s had called mid-July and I’d had the foresight to say a valiant “YES” to their services and we’d put an upcoming appointment on the calendar. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

I went in to that appointment, like most first visits, not quite knowing what to expect. I can tell you for absolute sure that I did not expect to walk away with what we did: a shiny new diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for my daughter. It’s hard for me to find the words. Though it was 100% the diagnosis I was expecting someday, sometime, at even the next appointment perhaps, it was not what I was anticipating right then, so soon, in our brief 50 minutes together. It was almost as if I had been blind-sided and yet entirely affirmed all at the same time. The diagnosis is undeniable and I would know better than anyone. It’s frightening how many of her symptoms align identically with the way they presented in me when I was diagnosed in 8^th grade. It’s been rather triggering for me to wade through the awful, terrible, wholly consuming murk that is OCD again, but this time as a bystander and coach who also happens to understand the disorder intimately. My poor, sweet girl. 

But the good news? We are in such an amazing program! I literally get goosebumps when I think about how far things have come since I went through my own treatment. I am shocked weekly at the “exposures” I am asked to walk my daughter through. We are teaching her to “talk back to the OCD” and do the opposite of what OCD is telling her to do. It’s so counterintuitive and confusing and amazing all at once.

So yeah. Us Croziers are really “in it” right now, this strange, seemingly-never-ending pursuit of health, wholeness and well-being for all of us. I am still working through my own stuff. Graham is working through his. I’m just waiting for kid three to show his cards and we’ll get him enrolled in whatever form of therapy he needs. Perhaps by then they will have some sort of “buy two, get one free” sort of deal we can monopolize on. Ha! Seriously though, is this just life? Sometimes I wonder if we are crazy for our level of dysfunction. Or if I’m just crazy for thinking our level of crazy is crazier than others? Whatever the case, life is hard and good and rich and challenging and we are doing our darndest to come before the Lord each day for strength and sustenance. Because heaven knows we need it! Onward!

The Slog

Hi oh faithful reader! So much for that nutrition series I promised, eh? What? You have no recollection of said series? Forget I said anything then. For the two of you that might still be waiting for the series to materialize, I must be honest and say that it ain’t happening. At least not right now. I was on a roll for a hot second (three posts – ha!) and then I fell off the wagon. In the most positive of ways one can fall off a wagon, I would argue. Technically, I guess you could say I jumped.

The old me would have powered through my verbal commitment to the internet, made the arrangements, written half-heartedly and pushed myself to the point of resentment (of whom, I’m not entirely sure) to pull off the promised series. But then I would have felt annoyed and unfulfilled because my energies were needed elsewhere, and I found myself experiencing a heavy sense of obligation, even if entirely self-induced.

I teetered on the edge of the wagon for a good long while, fighting the inner voices that screamed that not following through on a writing series that NO ONE HAD ASKED ME TO DO somehow made me a failure. Totally crazy, I realize (spoiler alert: I’m in therapy – but we’ll get there….)

Anyhow, I battled those self-inflicted negative thoughts of failure and eventually stocked up enough grace for myself to don my knee pads and jump off the wagon ON PURPOSE, intentionally trading my laptop and my promised writing series for a bedside table towering high with novels that I have been reading as if my life depended on it.

So that’s where I’ve been. Reading my novels and entertaining my 4-year-old whose preschool began their “summer” break WAY earlier than his mother feels was necessary. But I digress… It still bothers me that I didn’t finish the writing series but I’m sitting with it (which I’m told is all a part of the process). I say all this not to justify my absence but rather to give permission. For some of us, the harder choice is to say no to productivity and yes to this life-giving thing called rest. (You all know who you are).

Back in December, I began a new kind of therapy which I’ve eluded to in some of my recent posts. Graham and I did some significant work together with a couple’s therapist but then determined there were some issues that needed to be addressed individually before we could continue to move forward. There are many, many layers to the struggles I (we) have experienced, but one significant contributor that I bring to the table is my anxiety. I don’t suffer from the panic-attack-fearful-of-flying kind of anxiety, but rather, a form that presents itself as intrusive thoughts that can literally consume me if not held in check. Our couple’s therapist provided me the verbiage that these thoughts “torment” me and I can think of no better way to describe it. So, I’ve been engaging in some pretty hard work the past 7 months to kick decades of anxiety struggles to the curb. Or at least out of the driver’s seat. At this point, I would consider even that a win.

My individual therapist (who specializes in anxiety and trauma) uses a method called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and, to be totally frank, it sucks. Which is one of the reasons establishing times to REST and creating MARGIN in my life has become of utmost importance. There is just no way around it: the process is dang tiring. Part of the reason for this is because it pushes you out of your comfort zone in about every way possible. It is no secret that I like a plan. Give me a verbal prescription of what you want done, exacting in detail, and I will not disappoint. When I began CBT, I came in with a list, an agenda of all that I wanted to accomplish. I was ready to get down to business and “get it done.” I would leave my appointments asking, “What is my homework for this week? What should I be working on? What do I need to be doing to achieve my goals?”

My therapist saw right through this piece of me and seized the perfect opportunity to make me sit in the gray. Some weeks, she INTENTIONALLY didn’t give me homework. She let me carry the sessions all over the place ON PURPOSE. There was so much less structure in our times together than I’d envisioned. I found it super annoying and remedied these feelings of discomfort by labeling her as incompetent. Certainly, she was unskilled, and the problem was her inability to “keep us on task.”

As it turns out, she knew what she was doing. And I hate being wrong.

I don’t have a check-box therapy plan (so frustrating). There isn’t a map showing how she plans to get me from Point A to Point B (infuriating). The process has been very organic in nature (drives me literally bonkers). But now I’m started to see it. She’s pushing me. Testing me. Stretching me. Forcing me to be okay when things aren’t black and white.  

It’s awful.

And at the same time, it’s good.

Because the process has been so ALL OVER THE MAP, I often feel like I have no barometer on which to measure myself to determine if I’ve made any progress. It’s been hard to know if I’m “getting anywhere.”

This past week, we paid our couple’s therapist a visit for the first time in 8 months to “check in.” She's been in our lives for awhile now. She knows where we started, knows what I looked like before I began this most recent journey into therapy. I went into our time together wondering, Had I made any progress with my beasts? The appointment itself didn’t provide this feedback, which I found hugely disappointing. But a follow up session with my individual therapist, who collaborates with our couple’s therapist, provided the affirmation I needed. She shared the following observation that had been passed on to her: “Kelsie appears visibly stronger.”

VISIBLY STRONGER! I can think of no better praise right now.

What do these words do for me? They help me see that all this yucky-feeling unknown I’ve pushed through, all these sessions that have felt all-over-the-place have actually been doing something. I’m not following a check box, step-by-step plan (at least not that my therapist has shared with me) but it is working. My intrusive thoughts have diminished by at least a fraction of a hair. If not twice that! Or more! I now have an answer for all those times where I’ve left a session wondering “Did that really accomplish anything?” Maybe not in that immediate moment. But in the long term? Absolutely.

And my sitting on the couch reading novels instead of “doing something more productive”? This practice has held an important therapeutic role too. I’m learning to chill. I’m learning to let go. I’m learning to NOT function out of anxiety and spend my hours writing the thing for the people who didn’t even ask for it and DON’T EVEN CARE. I’m no longer operating solely under the dictatorship of those intrusive thoughts. Has it been easy? Heck no. Does it seem counterintuitive that my BEST THERAPY right now might actually be to quit doing and simply put my feet up and indulge myself in a novel. Yep. But it’s working! And that gives me such hope.

So, what does reading all this offer you, the reader, beyond just a bird’s eye view into some of the juicy details of my life? (We all love a good juicy detail - send me yours when you have a sec – j/k!) I know that some of you are in a process that isn’t fun. You might be working toward something, working on something, stuck in the middle of something, enduring something. You might be in a place where it is difficult to see the forest for the trees. The process might be feeling hard and ugly. And you might be wondering whether it’s still worth it to continue.

I have a friend who often reminds me it’s the middle that’s the hardest. The middle is the place where you could just as easily fall back from whence you came as exert the hard push needed to make it to the finish. The middle is the point where it’s most tempting to give up on progress and abort the mission.

I know the feeling. I’ve been there countless times. My word for the year is HOPE and I hadn’t had much of it until this past week. But God is meeting me here in the middle and, through the affirmations of others, reminding me He never left my side. 

I pray for the same for you. I pray that wherever it is that you are working or waiting or longing or hurting, that you would see glimmers of hope shining through the trees as you try to get a visual on your own personal forest. That you would see God showing up along the way. Stay strong and stick with your slog through the middle. Don't be afraid to do the work, no matter how much ugly it brings up or how awful it feels. You are in process and there is light at the end of this mess.