Dear parents of an adult child with un-diagnosed mental illness,

Dear parents of an adult child with un-diagnosed mental illness,
This
is why I want you to go
see a good family counselor psychologist: so

you will know 

that this 

is not 

your fault.  I 

want you to talk
to someone who sees
this kind of thing
every day, someone
who will listen with
knowledge, someone
who can suggest
things you can try

(if you haven't already 

tried them and only 

if you ask).  I want 

you to hear--from someone who hears
from people like you for a living--
whether or not this behavior
that hurts you
so badly
is something your child
chooses (and something you choose
to allow) or whether

this is 

something 

your child 

has no choice over 

due to the mental health issues.
Maybe that doesn't
matter to you so much,
but it does to me.  It's
different for me if
someone is choosing
to be cruel to me than
if someone is
unable to
choose
anything healthy
because of brain
chemistry problems.
It's scary, too, of
course, to think that

someone is behaving 

so badly without 

any choice 

in the matter 

because that means they can't
choose better behaviors (except
maybe to finally seek treatment
and health and help like any
ill person should).  However,

I'd rather know that truth

than go on suspecting 

that someone is knowingly, 

intentionally causing pain 

to people who love them

because that person chooses
to do so for any reason.  Please,

talk to someone who 

can give you real answers,

and stop lying and
saying it's okay and
it doesn't bother you
when the hurt you feel
is a sound
I can hear
so clearly even
over my phone's
terrible connection
to you.  Please choose
to find out
if this brokenness
can be repaired or
needs to be surrendered
as something you
cannot change and are not
responsible for, so we can all
move on from there.
Love,
TMIA

A little help here

Last Sunday was rough.  I was in a lot of pain and haven't been sleeping much, so I am not at my most tactful or kind.  I cringed at the idea of having to shake hands, not to mention what would happen if someone tried to hug me, but I cringed more at the thought of telling people not to touch me.   Also, I've been trying not to let the pain be my excuse for skipping church.  So I went to church,  craving invisibility, so I wouldn't have to shake hands or move or say anything.  The problem with going to church right now is that I am new at this church, so I can't just stay seated and hide away and be antisocial like I want to.  (Even if I had tried to do so, people move around so much there, to make sure they greet everybody, I would have had to keep getting up to let them past anyway).  So I shook hands with a pained smile.  Days later I'm still paying the price.

Why is it so hard for me to just come up with a line to deflect people kindly?  (I think this must be related to how hard it is for me to say I'm sorry.  A lot of the same choking up and rationalizing in circles and excuses seem to occur.)  It's kind of silly, but I hate the way people's faces fall or they stop making eye contact when I tell them I can't touch them/be touched, and I can't think of anything to say because I'm just so tired, so I just don't say anything about it while I'm shaking their hand, and it's like someone's driving spikes through my wrists, and then I pay the price in increased pain and decreased sleep for days and have to fight even harder to make myself go to church the next time it's Sunday morning, and I'm in pain.  If only I could find the perfect words . . .

I am convinced that most people would hate to cause other people pain like this.  I also think that some people hate knowing they caused pain more than actually causing pain.  Like maybe they'd rather cause the pain and not know than be told to stay away.  Did I mention I'm not at my mental best at times like these?

I think I need help.  To flip the question around, for those of you who attend warm and welcoming churches where folks greet each other affectionately with a handshake or a hug, what could someone in pain say to you to prevent physical contact that would leave you still feeling loved and greeted and not awkward and offended and unlikely to ever talk to that person again?

And if you are a person who deals with this kind of pain, what do you say in this situation? 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Being Christ to the Creeper, Part II

Perhaps it boils down to this: What would Christ have me do here and now?  This poor dude has fallen in my path, and I am supposed to be a good neighbor and love extravagantly.  I'm supposed to meet his needs somehow because I am, as they say, the man on the ground at this moment.  This strikes me as a tad absurd because, frankly, I would say this kid does NOT need ME to try to teach him to be SOCIAL. 

I am an introverted, lonerish, antisocial person by inclination.  I LIKE being this way.  I suppose I could teach him how to repel people less obnoxiously, but obviously, he doesn't need my help overall with that.  He needs friends his own age to help him understand what is appropriate and what is not.  But let's be serious: how many 18-year-olds  at anime clubs do you know who have the sensitivity to notice this situation and the ability to do something to improve it? 

I'm not saying they're non-existent, but when I was in college as an upperclassman leading orientation groups, I had to reach out to some of my freshman to give them people to hang out with because their own peers couldn't do so.  I tried approaching the leadership of the club to ask them to take on this responsibility (I figure it's theirs), and that . . . didn't really work.  Maybe they need someone to teach them how.  : )  But I was a completely different person back then in a different place, and I had that to offer.  Now I don't. 

So we circle back to the question again: what would Jesus have me do besides pray for someone else to intervene?  Lacking any clear messages in 30-foot letters of fire, I turn to the gallery.  Your thoughts on what it means to love my neighbor in this case?

Being Christ to the Creeper

Once upon a time when I was younger and less physically broken, one of my jobs was befriending the lonely ones, the ones left outside the circle, the ones no one wanted.  I would protect them, the pasty and overweight ones, the socially awkward, the prickly, the unattractive.  Since I did not need friends or popularity or fitting in, I was free to be friends with those who needed friends but, for whatever reason, couldn't seem to make it with the regular people.  I felt like it was some sort of gifting or calling, a way to use my comfortable introversion to love people like Christ commands us to.  Now I am older, more physically broken and exhausted, and I don't have the energy to use this freedom any more, which is unfortunate because there's a guy at the anime club this semester who is starting to really creep me out.

In the anime club, I have always been there for the anime.  I have never been there to make friends, be part of the community, or fit in.  I don't live on campus; I'm not a student.  I do not need any friends in the club to have a nice time.  This has always worked out well (once the super-friendly folks have learned to leave me alone each semester) because it's good for these kids to make friends with their peers.  I have not needed to actually reach out and show kindness to an outcast when I have pretty much nothing to give.  With one notable exception, I have made no friends there, and it has been lovely.

Many of the folks in the anime club are a bit socially awkward.  This stereotype exists because it is based in observable fact.  Many of them are bad at eye contact and reading body language and understanding personal space, but they usually figure things out by the time they graduate.  Most of them find their tribes, even the ones who are incredibly annoying and awkward.  As a sort of maiden aunt, I watch all of this at a distance and am glad things work out, even if I am sometimes mystified. 

This semester has been different.  This semester has been incredibly uncomfortable.  This semester there is a guy who hasn't found his tribe, and he seems to want me to be his tribe because all the other natives flee screaming at his approach.

I have never met anyone so terrible at understanding body language and personal space.  He seems to take me scrunching up, leaning and moving away, refusing eye contact, and reluctantly talking brusquely in short answers when absolutely necessary as amazing encouragement to sit down, move cloers, be friends and talk and talk and talk about the same things 4 over and over and over again.  (At least he hasn't used the words "scrotum" and "anus" since the first time he opened his mouth to talk to me several weeks ago.)  He talks about his anime that he will make some day and its badass, junior-high-school-boy-humor-liking female main character and what he doesn't like about X, Y, and Z anime and about why he likes the Devil May Cry anime but hates Black Lagoon, etc., ad nauseum.  (If you're an anime fan, this will seem even more annoying to you than if you aren't.)  He does this to anyone who has a pulse and doesn't actually get up and just walk away.

Recently, because no one else will even talk to him, he has taken to following me out to my car, chattering all the way, and ignoring my LEAVE ME ALONE PLEASE body language and really fast pace because he is that desperate to connect.

I know that if I want him to leave me alone, I need to just completely ignore him and not respond at all.  However, he is so lonely and sad that my old reflexes kick in, and I talk sometimes, un-encouragingly and grudgingly, because I don't want him to be completely alone in silence.  He is so young and so awkward, and I think he may not ever find any friends if he doesn't come across the college student equivalent of the old me soon.

I probably don't have to tell you that the following me to my car thing makes me really nervous.  Men I don't know in general make me wary and having to be trailed by one as I walk half a mile away to my car where there might not be anyone else around does not help.  I think that I probably need to just have the creeper talk with him or ask the club admins to intervene, but maybe I've been living in Minnesota too long (land of 10,000 ways to passive-aggressively indicate things instead of just saying them) or maybe I'm trying in a sort of half-assed way to be Jesus to this poor kid.  I mean, everyone avoids him, and that's really sad (even if I totally understand why they avoid him).  I was hoping someone would take him under their wing and help him understand the basics of body language, but they haven't even this far in to the semester. 

As maybe one of the few believers who attend the club, do I have some sort of responsibility toward him?  Because I'm sure acting like I do.  And as long as I sub-consciously feel responsible, I won't be able to just tell him leave me alone or ask the folks in charge of the club to intervene.  Thus far, the best I've been able to do is drag my poor friend to the club to try to act as a buffer and escort to my car, and that's not fair to him.

So, Christians, your thoughts?  Everyone, your strategies?

I don't know how to love her and other situations that make for tragic musicals

There's this person in this church group I am nominally in charge of.  If I say she sometimes seems to be made of glass, I don't mean that she is beautiful and delicate.  I mean that it's like she got scraped raw by life and then rolled in broken glass, which stuck to the blood, and when she lets the cloak she covers herself with fall, no one can figure out how to comfort her in a way that will not damage both.  There was a really bad meeting which ended with a lot of us trying to hold back tears because how on God's green earth do you show someone that wounded and broken and jagged that she is loved and liked and wanted?  I knew things were bad when I found myself humming Nancy's song from Oliver.  It's a good thing I only really know that first line, or I likely would have had the blasted song stuck in my head whole for weeks.

I got out the only available version of the Five Love Languages from my library (The 5 Love Languages for Children), but it wasn't really much help because it's aimed at parents and is about dealing with children.  This person holds down a job she hates because it provides benefits, a paycheck, and a cushion to allow her beloved to do the less lucrative and somewhat seasonal work he loves.  She is an adult.

When it was just occasional grumblings and the beginnings of a tendency to tell the same painful stories on endless repeat and hijack the conversation, I was able to redirect things, sometimes with subtlety and panache and sometimes with inartistic but effective bluntness.  But when she said that she dreaded coming every week because it made her even more miserable and she only came because she knew her husband wouldn't want to come without her even though he adores the group, we were all at a loss.  Most of us kind of enjoy the group and the time we spend together.  We like her and her husband.  We have no idea what to say to that kind of explosion of broken glass.  We mostly just duck and cover to avoid the shrapnel. 

We want to hug her and tell her we love her except she hates and loathes begin hugged and doesn't believe anyone saying they love her (with the possible exception of her husband, though I'm not sure).  She gets even more savage when she thinks people are saying things to make her feel better, whether they are true or not.  Sometimes I'm not sure she know how to feel not-miserable.  I don't know if she ever did.

When I say I am the "leader," I mean I'm the secretary.  I report back to the church, pass out the feedback surveys (when I remember), attend meetings for small group leaders, and pass info on to the small group from the church.  Our church still isn't very good at this discipleship thing, and the role of small group leader is a voluntary one that carries no authority or spiritual responsibility.

I think probably this lady needs some really good spiritual counseling, but I think it would take a miracle for her to find someone who could be effective working with her the way she is now, trapped in negative thinking and stress and incapable of letting herself be loved.  She and her husband have a close relationship with the counseling pastor and the social pastor at our church (a married couple), which is actually not a good thing because I'm pretty sure she couldn't bear being honest with those people in case it made them think less of her.

The psychologist in our group says we're in a tough spot, because we aren't treating her (and can't because that's not our relationship), so all we can do is redirect when she starts to hijack, ignore the negative outbursts as we have been--so she doesn't get attention for them--and encourage her on the super-rare occasions when she says positive things (even though that makes her prickly).  Maybe next time she explodes, we'll have to be direct and tell her that it really hurts us when she says things like that, but we love her anyway.  We may also have to ask what we can do to make her dread the meetings less or find out what it is about them that she dreads.  I'm not sure she knows how to explain it, and I'm not convinced that scrutiny wouldn't drive her away.  It's all so very fraught.

Any suggestions?

Doctors don't really understand chronic pain

Most doctors don't really understand chronic pain.  

People who have it for a long time are used to hiding it.  So doctors who are looking for "signs of visible discomfort" are not going to find it, and this is going to make them think you are a hypochondriac and not an excellent, well-practiced actor.  It's a good idea to establish some way to communicate with each provider when you're in discomfort.  If nothing else, this will save you the frustration of having to read the puzzled phrase "no signs of visible discomfort" so many times in your records. : )

Since they don't understand it (its causes and especially its effects), doctors will really just not be able to factor it into your overall situation.  It's frustrating, but if you set that bar low, you will be less frustrated.  It can also be a gate you use when meeting new potential providers.  How much do they know about chronic pain and what do they understand about its effects?  Can they factor this knowledge and understanding into the puzzle that is your symptoms?  If so, they may be better able to help you. 

At the very least, they won't frustrate you as much by throwing their hands up in the air and getting mad at you when nothing they try seems to help and they get pulled up short by their own limited knowledge and understanding.  Not all doctors do this, but some do.  Try to avoid them, if you can.  : )  But also try not to hold it against them.  No one likes to be reminded sharply of one's finitude.

Your health care providers don't really understand that your information is yours

Your health care providers (and their billers) do not really always understand that your information is yours and should be easily accessible, so you will have to go on the offensive mission and gather it even if they treat you like an annoying fraudulant fraudster (or like they think you're a hypochondriac and not a responsible adult trying to be organized). 

Cut them some slack because, in theory, they make it this hard in order to protect you and your information from unsavory types who might want to steal it.  It's just a rather unfortunate side effect that all this protection makes it a hassle for you to obtain it, as well.  (And judging by the amount of it that gets stolen every year, not that much of a hassle for the unsavory types to obtain.)

Frankly, you know you're working with good providers if they send you a copy of it (or post it online) automatically after your visit. If they do this, then you know that they believe that you should be a participant in your own care and not simply a consumer.  However, this isn't common, so be ready for arcane rules, regulations, and hurdles not clearly posted anywhere.  Be ready to make lots of phone calls and follow-up calls and records of the names of the people you talked to, their phone numbers, job titles, dates and times of conversations.  I wish it weren't like this, and maybe things will get better soon, but for now, you will have to hustle to get what is rightfully yours.

Request your medical records at least annually, while they are free

Request your medical records at least annually, while they are free (by law the first copy is free if requested within a calendar year, I think). 

If you've been tracking them with your PHR, this should actually be a piece of cake.  At a set point every year, you can look through your list of visits and know exactly who you saw and when and what kinds of records you need to request from which group and which records you already requested (if any).  You can create a form letter and then fill in all the information clearly and in an organized fashion.  The records retrieval people will love you and maybe even be nice to you and not need to be called 6 times for follow up.  They will especially love you for not needing this done ASAP right now or you will be in a bad place because that is when people usually contact them, needing it done next week when their standard response time is 8 weeks or whatever. 

Make sure you know each organization's standard response time, so you don't panic and start calling to follow up prematurely.  You could record this information on the provider page or your PHR!

Once you have your last year's records, scan those suckers into your electronic file, so you can print out the pages you need when you need them.  Then pat yourself on the back for having it together.

You need to take control of your personal health record now (before it gets complicated), pt. 2

You need to take control of your personal health record now (before it gets complicated), pt. 2.

Seriously.  If you wait to even find out about PHRs until you are on the other side of the mountain, putting one together will be prohibitively difficult for one or more of the following reasons:

• Destroyed. They will have been disposed of (usually after 7 years) and no longer available.  
• Prohibitively expensive in one go.  They will cost money.  $1.27 a page or more.  And they will print out and charge you for every page, including the ones that say nothing but "Page 2 of 2."  
• Lost.  They will be impossible to obtain because they were lost in the move/merger/buyout/closing of the clinic.  
• Overwhelming.  There will be so many of them that you won't be able to organize them in a meaningful way.
• Useless.  Some of them will be comprised solely of doctor or PT speak, and they will mean nothing to you (OR OTHER DOCTORS) and will thus be worthless.  Better to find this out early, maybe while the doc or PT remembers well enough to actually produce a coherent 1-page summary if asked nicely.  And before you pay $1.27/page for 30 pages of useless gibberish.

You need to take control of your personal health record now

You need to take control of your personal health record now (before it gets/especially if it's complicated).

Yes, it is a total pain to track down records from providers, and some of them won't have the records you need because they moved and lost them or there was a fire or they just toss them after a certain period of time.  And if you don't have any chronic medical problems, you may not really need to, but if you do have some chronic medical problems or a history of injuries and illnesses, it might really be good to gather things while you are still relatively healthy.  (Age will likely not make you healthier.)  If you do have chronic conditions or a long history, it will be even more nightmarish to track down and organize all this information, but it is such a good idea to have it collected and tabbed and available electronically.  In case of emergency, you don't want to be given a med you have a bad reaction to.  In case of regular life happening unexpectedly, you don't want to have to be hunting this stuff down when you are hurting and not at your mental best. 

My advice: Just bite the bullet and do it now.  It can't hurt, and it CAN help.

Your medical records are wrong

Your medical records are wrong, and you can('t) change them.

This is a sad truth.  And a frustrating one especially if you are dealing with any kind of Worker's Compensation claim because then the lies are embedded, and zealous adjudicators will haul them out and use them against you, but I should stop now).  It's also only partially true.  In theory, you can change your medical records.  You just have to do the following:

1. see the records (why it's important to get the records).
2. notice the problem.
3. bring the problem to the attention of your provider within the time limit and in the manner your provider requires (why it's important to get the records quickly).
4. follow up politely, fervently, and regularly even if you can tell they think you are a huge pain (because they don't have to deal with the fallout from the incorrect records, but you do, and it could be worse than just having some medical records people get huffy with you).
5. have that response be approved/agreed with.
6. follow up to make sure the change gets made (and pay any fees associated with getting another copy of the records). 

Correcting records is (understandably?) not something your provider prioritizes.  It's hard to appeal because the time limit can expire, and it is a huge hassle to follow up over and over and over again to be sure it's moving.  And the whole process can even tick your medical provider off, frankly.  I mean, you are challenging their records, and some of them take it personally because they think it is a slur on their competence as wise doctors, when really it's just a reminder of something they may have written down wrong or something you didn't have time to fully cover in the short appointment you are usually granted, a gentle acknowledgement that we know our doctors are not omniscient, and we don't hold that against them, as long as they correct their mistakes.  We just want the records left behind to be correct since they are, technically, our records.

But it really is a hassle, so you may only want to address the potentially life-threatening mistakes, especially if this provider is the one linked to the hospital system you would most likely get admitted to.  If the hospital system and associated docs use the same health information system, the emergency room docs can see that cortisone allergy in the records.  If you end up at a totally different hospital, they have no records at all since the health information systems are all designed as silos that don't play well with other health information systems because standardization in this realm prevents them from making any money.

(That was cynical.  Sorry.  But also true.  Standardization of electronic health records would save hospitals, clinics, the government, and patients tons of money at the expense of the health information system development companies, so you can see that it is unlikely to ever occur.)

My advice: If your doctor is not afraid of you providing paperwork, try to hand over copies of what you say during the appointment (much easier with your handy PHR binder!).  This could increase their chances of typing up accurate notes and save everybody time.  Otherwise, just request the records a week later, and determine if it's worth the hassle to correct the mistakes.  (If this is a worker's comp claim, IT IS ALWAYS WORTH THE HASSLE NOW TO CORRECT THE ERRORS TO SAVE YOURSELF SO MUCH STRESS, TIME, AND RAGE LATER, EVEN IF YOU JUST DON'T HAVE THE ENERGY TO DO ANYTHING RIGHT NOW.)

I am a spreadsheet nerd

I am a spreadsheet nerd.  And I like it.  

Love it, actually.  Practical application of skills!  I looked at PHR templates and options.  (Not for long, because I didn't have time for that.)  I saved and printed some out to look at.  I wanted something electronic and easily printable.  I ended up finding these two things to be mutually exclusive.  I wanted something flexible, and nothing I found really met my needs as a not-actually-elderly person.  So I made my own.

Lots of trial and error.  Some combining and recombining, a few views, and voila!  After only 60+ hours I had gathered and boiled down a box full of medical records into something convenient, filterable, sortable, printable, copyable, and able to be shaded and updated at my whim.  Not that anyone has really wanted to look at it, but that's not its fault . . .

My advice: Make a PHR and commit to keeping it updated.  Do it using whatever programs, pre-existing forms, and storage methods make the most sense to you.  Do it now, before your life and the lives of your loved ones get complicated.  It's kind of a spiritual exercise to get it ready.  And you probably won't have as many records to deal with, so it won't take you as long as it took me . . .

If you'd like a blank version of the one I use, let me know.  I can certainly send it to you if you use Microsoft Excel or compatible things.

Do what you know

“We’re all dying because of chronic disease because of bad behavior. It’s not enough to go see the doctor once a year and have him tell you what to do. It’s not that people don’t know what to do, it’s that they don’t do what they know,” says Lavoie, co-director of the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre in Canada.

When I read the above article (part of keeping up on current med-tech trends for work), I found myself struck by the above statement.  And how much it made me think of a Bible passage where the writer talks about how the one who believes will keep Christ's commandments, not just talk about them.  And that passage in the Bible where the writer talks about how frustrating it is that we don't do the things we want to/should do (but instead do the things we don't want to do because we are trapped in this body of death).

To paraphrase: It's not enough to go to church every Sunday (even a doctrinally solid church) and be told what to do.  We know what to do, really.  We just don't do it.  Do we not really believe it?  Are we being lazy?  I think that one passage about doing what we don't want to do and who can save us from this body of death ends with one of those long, rolling, buoying passages about how Christ saved us, will save us, is saving us, and all praise to Him.  Amen.  But we're also told to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.  We are told to do what He commanded.  We are told our actions should reflect where are hearts are, what we really, truly believe.  Sometimes, our actions mostly reflect laziness and sloppy thinking.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the health research and study results.  Today, They definitely conclude that this behavior Will Kill You.  In two years, They will proclaim that this behavior is The Best Ever.  It's hard to know what's really healthy sometimes.

But we all know the basics.

• eat more unprocessed foods, especially whole grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables.
• move more (get up and walk around, challenge your muscles and your cardiovascular system).
• don't stress yourself out over things you can't control.
• do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.
• be a good steward.
• love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
• love your neighbor as yourself.

We know the basics, but do we do them?

If we really believe they are important, won't our actions and behaviors change to reflect what we really believe?  I pray it may be so for me.

a small semantic revelation

We are called to act as if we love everyone.  Not act (emphasis theater/performance/fakery/hypocrisy) but act as in commit acts/take actions that show we love even if we do not feel like it, a sort of Christ-follower's professionalism instead of actor's professionalism.

We are called to be not those who act but those who take actions.

This ends my epiphany for the day.

I didn't miss you, pain

The pain is spiking, and I haven't been sleeping much.  I never really know what is cause and what is effect.  It doesn't matter because I just have to deal with the one-two punch combo, only since there are several areas of pain concentration, it feels more like being pummeled by a bigger combo.  It's funny how when the pain isn't as bad, I sometimes wonder if I am overdramatizing it or romantiSIZING it.  Then it gets bad again, and I realize I wasn't. 

I was actually hopeful that I might be coming down with the flu or something, and that's when I realized it was pretty bad.  The flu is somewhat predictable and finite (even for folks with bad lungs like I have).  This pain?  Not so predictable.  Like a real shadow boxer: someone I can't see lurking and then JAB and my breath is gone, and I can't remember what I was thinking about because all that's there is the pain.  And then it's gone, and I'm panting a bit and sweaty and glad my new chair is sturdy and hard to fall out of.

And I think again, "I have got to do something about this."  But then I have to get back to work, almost frantic to make up for those seconds lost to this round of pain as I wait for the next one.  And besides, drugs are the only thing I haven't tried, and I like to think that with my propensity for weird and crappy side effects, I still probably feel better overall without them.  But I will definitely get my shoulder diagnosed this year. 

After that, if I haven't gotten laid off yet, I will try some more physical therapy for the other arm, the one with the nerve problems, the really tricky one that started all this.  I am cautious not to aim to high, not to overwhelm myself with all these problems.  Slowly, one step at a time.  Until I find out that all of them are incurable and have only one choice left: Deal with it.

Until then, there is hope. 

You can see why I might procrastinate in this.  Cut me a little slack about it, okay?  : )

Being the grownup (in my own special way)

I am really trying to be an adult about this, but it's hard.  In my small group from church, we got on the topic of how I am really not a people person but how I seem to be constantly be involved in things that help other people connect.  I am overcompensating, in a way.  I lack something that most people have, and I've read enough and known enough people to recognize this.  As the dispassionate outsider, maybe I'm somehow better equipped to help other people connect?  I don't know. 

Anyway, the group members all did the sharing-not-so-secret-grins-and-eye-contact that says, "Ha ha, you say this, but you are exaggerating, and we know the real you really like people and are just shy."  They dismiss all my hard work in fighting my nature pretty much every second I am around them (and everybody else).  It is reeeeeeallllly annoying.  And it makes me want to do nothing more than what I really want to do: withdraw and be blessedly alone, no matter who I have to hurt in the process.  Ignore invitations, blow people off to hibernate as much as possible, read when I want to, not have to be with people.

I mean, I really don't want to waste time on all these things that I do because they are good things to do.  I do them because they help others and show my commitment to to follow Christ and love the people He puts around me because He asks me to love them, which I can only do through my choice of will and my actions of denying myself and my desires.  And people basically thinking it's a big joke that I say this is such hard work make me want to throw in the towel.

But, you know?  That would be really childish and immature.  I am not, ultimately, doing this for their approval.  I have higher reasons.  So even though giving in sounds glorious (I cannot tell you how wonderful it sounds or how much I want it), I will keep going to meet with them and will try my best to ignore their knowing smirks that don't, in fact, know anything because I know who I am, and God knows my heart, and that's really all that matters.

Give your friends a chance

An acquaintance recently informed us that she has suffered with depression and OCD for a couple of decades.  She was so nervous, it hurt to watch her.  I wondered whether she would start unraveling the blanket if she ran out of tissues to shred.  She made eye contact in stuttering dashes.

Oh, I thought, some things make sense now.  And then I thought, Why is she acting like she's coming out to a hostile audience?  She knows two others in the group have wrestled with depression (and still do).  Why is this so hard for her to "admit"?

As she told us she'd been kind of suicidal, I said a little prayer of thanks to God that I had been too typically procrastinatory to actually write that email I had been thinking about sending because I thought maybe she was just doing what my other friends who just wanted to move on had done because they were too cowardly to just say it to my face and break things off cleanly and openly.  Don't leave us hanging and wondering if you're going to come this week or ever again, I would have said in a more polite way because I was afraid she was just dithering in a passive aggressive way and afraid of hurting our feelings with the truth.  It's a very good thing I didn't send that email, which would have kindly assured her that if she didn't want to be part of the group anymore, she could just tell me, and I would tell everyone else and no one would hold it against her. 

Because that would really not have been a good thing for her to hear while she was trapped in negative thoughts, withdrawing from us all, as she told us she has done to many friends, because she didn't want to inflict herself on us, especially not when she was like that. 

I thought of a couple of my friends who pulled away in this way for some of these reasons because they were depressed.  Were they, like her, afraid of finding their friends really weren't that good of friends? That their friends would slowly drift away, always having a good excuse, not saying anything, not returning calls until no one called anymore?  Did they, afraid of finding out that truth, take the yoke upon themselves and wrap themselves in silence because forcing everyone away and leaving them seemed preferable to being left by them?  Probably.

My heart hurts.

How do I tell her that I am honored that she told us these things, yet that I beg her to please oh please give those friends a chance.  Because while it's true that some of them--even most of them and maybe all of them--will leave, some might stay, and she owes it to herself and those friends to uncover this truth?

"I was writing to figure it out, writing to get through it, writing because I couldn’t remember how to pray." - Addie Zierman

My heart hurts.  And all I can pray is, "Please, God . . ."

Let's Stop Pretending, Shall We?

"[T]he truth has always been that without God’s intervention, I am selfish and prideful every minute of every day. I care what others think because deep down I want to be seen as great—I want to matter. I find it impossible to forgive; to truly be able to forgive people who hurt us must be one of God’s greatest miracles. And I belittle the God of the universe by worrying as if he is not really in control. Inside, my soul seems prone to slant toward every quality I would never want to possess. I live assuming I am not alone in these weaknesses. Mostly because I know a lot of people."
. . .
"We don’t want to fall. We like to see great testimonies of God’s grace, but we don’t want to be the testimony."

 - Jennie Allen

Oh, yes.  Please check out this article.  It's called "Don't Pretend," and a lot of broken people just like me, just like us, need us to stop pretending in the church.

Lord, teach us to pray (Part II)

So I stand here panting from the effort of figuring out what to say, silent in another hour of need. 

What I want to pray is,"God, please don't let me lose my job in the layoff the day before I talk to the surgeon.  God, I know I complain about the arm and how much simpler things would have been if something was just ripped/broken/torn and repairable, but I think maybe I take that back in this case.  God, please don't let me need surgery.  Please don't let this be torn or worn away or dented.  Please don't let this be arthritis."  So many things I am asking for.

"What I want is for this to go away quickly because the magic cure to this one thing--God, please, just this one damn thing--exists, and I can afford it, and I'm not allergic to it, and it won't make things worse, and my inability to heal quickly due to exhaustion won't matter, and then this will be over, and I can go back to concentrating on the pain in my arm and my jaw and my foot and my wrist and my shoulder and my knees.  Please, Lord, aren't those things enough?" 

There are so many people who have it worse, and I feel like a jerk for praying for me instead of them.  "What should I be saying, God?  Please tell me."  These are some of the things I consider saying.

Instead I stand silent on the official prayer channel. 

What if I once again pray for the wrong thing?  (And then get what I pray for?)  But what if I just need to pray one more time for the answer to be yes?  Is it sinful for me to wonder if it's like that parable about the old woman getting justice because she kept at that corrupt judge, or was that the point of the parable "always pray and never give up."  But this is a young woman and a righteous God, and how do I know if what I ask for is justice or just selfishness?  And maybe I'm supposed to just be whimpering help, but it feels like a cop-out, like laziness, like weakness, like failing.

"Lord, teach us to pray," one of His disciples said.  Oh, please, God, please.  Amen.

Adopting embryos: Y'know, I don't even know what to think about this

Possibly the only thing here that didn't totally creep me out here: 'These are image-bearing persons who are endowed by their Creator, not by their “usefulness” with certain inalienable rights. Opening our hearts, and our homes, and sometimes our wombs, to the least of these is a Christ-like thing to do.'  I guess I would still suggest that Christians prioritize adopting currently-born children and teenagers around them who desperately long for a home and a family.  As Christians, we really aren't doing a very good job at this whole "looking after widows and orphans" thing, leaving aside this idea of adopting embryos.

On a related note, I have to say that every time I read an article about the tens of thousands of dollars people spend trying to get pregnant while so many kids sit around now waiting for families, I get pretty irritated.  I don't talk about it much because I'm usually told that I just don't understand since I am not a person who is looking for another person to have children with.  Maybe this is true, but I do understand cold, hard, numbers, and I think I have a basic understanding of stewardship.  I guess that's why I can't fathom why people think it's a better use of their God-given resources to desperately try to get pregnant while abandoning the orphans in their communities.

I'm told I don't understand the desperation of women who can't get pregnant, like Hannah and Sarah and Elizabeth.  This is true.  However, they prayed, as far as I know, and didn't spend thousands of dollars to get their babies.  (This might not be true.  Maybe they did sacrifice extravagantly while praying over the years.  I guess the Bible just doesn't mention that, so I can't really know.)

Sometimes you get a baby, and sometimes you don't.  Sometimes a terrible person who doesn't want kids and mistreats and raises them badly gets to easily have lots of babies, and you, a decent person, do not.  That is the cold, hard truth of the matter.

I don't understand why this is so devastating when, as I have mentioned, there are plenty of parent-less kids around who want parents.  If you want children to love and care for and raise, there are plenty out there waiting desperately for you right this very minute!

I am told that this is not really the point.  I guess I just don't understand what the point is.

As I said, I don't talk about this much.  It doesn't seem helpful or really sensitive to toss off around people who might be having fertility issues because I really don't understand their pain at all (which does not invalidate that pain).  But I guess I think it does need to be said, to be tossed out into the sea of possibilities and ideas because maybe it's something someone really needs to hear, and maybe it could change the life of a child somewhere waiting for a parent and a home, especially since some states are staring to make it illegal for single people to adopt.