Thursday, November 6: Hello, Darkness My Old Friend

Depression hasn't killed me so far, and at this point, I'm pretty confident it won't. Because at this point, while it's still painful, it's also familiar. I've learned to ride out its occasional visit. 

This, too, shall pass.

Except in fall and winter, depression—never a welcome guest—tends to overstay. As daylight dwindles into early nights, that old familiar darkness creeps back and settles in, unpacking its portmanteau of pain I feel but can't touch, can't escape, and can't completely explain, despite the fact that I understand it's woven from the threads of my abusive past.

Face cupped in my hands, eyes closed, I chant my mantras: I can't do this again. Why do I have to do this again? or simply, I can't. Other incantations include, I don't want to be here anymore and I hate this life, which, when I stop to think about it, is probably shorthand for, I hate feeling this way and having to live this way.

Because this way is such a bloody struggle. Every damned day. Nothing, it seems, comes easy—a truism that applies even when I'm not in depression's grip. At 74 years old, life's struggles, large and small (some so small they're ridiculously trivial), have worn me out, and that weariness keeps the door to my psyche cracked, giving my least favorite visitor access. 

But this, too, shall pass.

I know this, because, time and again, God has brought me through, so I'm confident God will bring me through again. It's what They do. (They being the 3 Persons). I might wish James Finley was talking through his hat when he said, "God spares us from nothing," even though he continued, "but sustains us in everything," except personal experience—which includes childhood sexual abuse, parental emotional abuse, spousal abuse, and psychiatric abuse—seems to bear him out. I wasn't spared, but I was absolutely sustained, or I wouldn't be here.

Sometimes I wonder if being sustained by God is actually a mercy. I mean, when you know you're going to receive the strength and stubbornness to get through, you understand there's no escape; you just have to endure. Those self-destructive moments when I imagined—even half-heartedly attempted—to leave under my own power didn't, thank God, last long enough to see me gone. God's grace, timely intervention, and pure, preordained stubbornness kept me here.

Today, suicide no longer has so much as a toehold.

Because those thoughts, too, have passed.

I know I can win this round. I detest knowing I'll have to win bouts again and again, but I'm confident I can and will.

Because now I understand, in a way I couldn't before, there are people who need me. Focusing on someone else lifts me out of the abyss for a while ... or at least, gets my attention off it. So even though I haven't done the dishes or cleaned house or mowed my lawn or done a hundred other things I should've, I'm somehow able to (reluctantly) check in with friends and family, participate in my online spiritual group every Tuesday morning, volunteer at Hospice a couple times a month, and maybe volunteer at the local food bank. 

Make no mistake: I have to force myself. Every. Time.

But I'm able to exercise every day and get out of the freakin' house once in a while to treat myself to an iced coffee, despite the fact that I never, ever want to do that or anything else.

Do I actually enjoy any of the healthy things I do? Not often, although I do experience satisfaction. It's the doing in spite of myself, the helping others no matter how minimally, the beating depression at its own friggin' game, that are important.

See, after decades of acquaintance, I'm onto depression's tricks. If I stop doing what's good for body and soul (mine and/or others'), even for a day, I'll get sucked into darkness so deep, I won't be able to move at all. Movement requires enormous force, but the power behind that force doesn't come from me. I suspect this is where God's sustaining comes in—feeding me willpower when pain and darkness whisper about the seductive comforts of isolation and complete inactivity. 

So far, I've written about what I've learned along the way. Today, I maybe got a hint that there's more. I read Mary Oliver's poem, "The Uses of Sorrow," and I started to wonder, for the first time, if my own box of darkness had given me gifts. If so, what are they, and why haven't I seen them before now? What if recognizing and appreciating my gifts from darkness will lead to its ... and my ... redemption?

Something to meditate on ....

I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten .... and ... you shall praise the name of the LORD your God. (Joel 2:25, 26)

Tuesday, October 28: One Beautiful Thing

 

My childhood was steeped in negativity. As an adult, I married into it, then passed it along to my children, like a genetic fault. Or a curse. So at 74 years of age, I'm completely awash in the stuff, and I've recently realized I've lost the ability to bathe in anything else.

I skewer the world with a dissatisfied gaze and simmer with indignation. Sometimes, my indignation isn't completely selfish or unproductive, like when I seethe over injustice and feel moved to take action against it. But more often than not, my indignation is petty and self-absorbed—against the driver who tailgates, the jar lid that won't unscrew, or the handle on my freezer door that some bright designer positioned perfectly for repeated, painful head knocks whenever I straighten from loading the vegetable bin down below.

I mutter to myself in anger and with an ongoing sense of injury, grousing mole hills into mountains. Not that you'd ever know it if you met me. You'd probably see me as a nice, funny, little old lady—and at my best, in the company of others, that's exactly who I am. But I'm also someone who's become an expert at keeping my complaints about the unfairness of it all to myself and hugging my negativity close, like a secret friend. Even though that "friend" has sucked most (if not all) of the joy out of my life.

Unfortunately, nobody told me that anxiety is the flipside of negativity. Viewing life through a jaundiced lens—and, to be fair to myself, through the lens of decades of abuse—always seeing the worst, leaves me vulnerable to the what-ifs. Waiting for the next shoe to drop or sword to fall, because I know it will. So I find myself living with a constant, vague dread, an ever-present fear that something wicked this way comes. 

And I'm convinced I deserve what comes, because the most virulent strain of my negativity is reserved for ... me. I'm a continual disappointment to myself—not spiritual enough, not brave enough, not every-damn-thing enough. Or maybe I'm too much—too all-in for a friendship I assume arose out of a casual conversation; too gung ho when someone asks me to research medical care options, and I immediately, feverishly bombard them with more information than one person could assimilate in a lifetime ... and don't stop there. (Dad used to say, "Kathleen, you go at everything like you're killing snakes." He wasn't wrong.)

As a 1980 G.I. Joe cartoon character famously informed children after every educational PSA, "Knowing is half the battle." Maybe he was right, and that gives me hope, but then I remember what John Heywood said: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks," and I remind myself that I've spent seven decades internalizing my old tricks. Is it too late to change?

Not talking about the kind of change where you hitch up your willpower pants and buy a book called Seven Strategies for Developing a Positive Outlook. I'm talking about deep, lasting spiritual transformation, a transfiguration I believe only God can accomplish: Eyes that see beauty, even among the ashes. A heart that dares to hope. Joy, even as those eyes recognize injustice and that heart bleeds for real, overwhelming worldwide pain and suffering.

I do think I have a part to play, but not in that old "God helps those who help themselves" way. I mean, God already helped me by letting me see all this so clearly, when I clearly didn't want to see it at all. But that first step in faith (obedience?) also has to be taken; it's not enough to kick back in the recliner and say, "Okay, God, I see what You're saying. Now give me positive outlook. By Tuesday, if possible." Looking my negativity in the eye is probably the first step. Giving it a swift kick and offering it up whenever I catch it grumping in would be another. (Honestly? I get tired just thinking about that battle! Makes me want to lie down and take a nap.) 

This morning I decided I would try to think about and appreciate one beautiful thing every day. I often skim the surface on this, settling for a brief nod to some blessing or other, but I want to try to change my approach by stopping on one thing and looking deeply. Pausing long enough to let my heart catch up and rejoice in that one beautiful thing. I don't know why, but I feel this is the way ....

Ode to a Bruised Reed

A bruised reed he will not break,

and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.

To my past self ....

 

I love you.

You were weak,
You were battered,
And your pain was unspeakable.
It's unspeakable still, and it lives on
In mind and body.

I suffer the pangs,
But I don't want to distance myself.
Instead, I want to wrap my arms around you,
Sink into your pain,
And whisper,

I love you.

I see you then,
Wild eyed, misery driven,
Desperately chasing the control
That escaped you utterly,
Until you lashed out at those you loved most.

I'm not ashamed of you.
Not anymore. 
Instead, I want to draw you into my lap,
Stroke your hair,
And murmur,

Shhh. I love you.

I remember you:
Tyrannized, leaden, hopeless.
In a fetal curl on the floor,
Drenched in suicidal darkness,
Wearing clothes that hadn't been washed in a month.

I feel your despair,
But I don't want to disconnect.
Instead, I want to lie close beside you,
Clasp your face in my hands,
And say,

Don't give up. I love you.

I love you just as you were
When life didn't seem worth living,
And you didn't feel capable of living it.
When abuse was all you knew,
And hope taunted like a desert mirage.

I love you just as you are—
A bruised reed,
Wounded but, by the grace of God,
Unbroken.

A bruised reed still anxiously imperfect,
Occasionally undisciplined,
Too often insular and self-absorbed.

Yet today, despite my flaws—
past and present—
I can say to myself,

I love you.

Radical Acceptance

I understand—and I think understanding is deeper than knowing—I can't go back and change what happened, to me or to you. 

But can I accept?

Easier, I believe, when I was Victim. 

The difficulty arises from those times when I was Perpetrator. Remembering, I hold self-hatred and regret tightly fisted. Can I let go of one and allow myself to feel the other? Accept that reasons aren't excuses, and neither can change what was?

Self-condemnation is ingrained (but "you have to be carefully taught"). Guilt has become my default, shame my secret sackcloth. But what purpose do they serve? Do they help or are they chains? Can I, should I, attempt a Houdini? Will I find some measure of peace and healing if I do?

(Even as I ask, a snide inner voice hisses, "Bitch, you don't get off that easily!")

Do I have the right to accept what you might never be able to? Not accept in the sense of being okay with what I did or saying it doesn't matter, but radically accept in the sense of it happened, it's done, it can't be changed—no judgment, for good or ill, tagged on. Simple acknowledgement, allowing myself to feel sadness and regret without grabbing hold and holding on.

Does acceptance mean accepting the fact that your wounds exist, that they continue to throb, often bleed, will sometimes bleed all over me? How do I accept the fact that you continue to suffer, and while I caused some of it, I can't change any of it? Nor can I prod you to.

Do compassion and radical acceptance mix? Can I recognize and empathize with your pain without resurrecting self-condemnation, once I manage (if I manage) to bury it? How do I accept and move on, but keep my heart soft?

Am I even remotely capable of that balance?

I suspect I have to try for it—despite the fact that I still don't completely get the concept, despite the fact that it doesn't strike me as quite fair—because not accepting and allowing myself to sink under the weight of guilt and shame and remorse (not that remorse is bad, but it can become a habitual, self-inflicted scourge) isn't doing either of us any good. Love tainted by a constant whiff of apology is fearful, small, and selfish.

Will my acceptance, and whatever good might come from it, ripple outward to you? Yeah, I know I can't expect that, let alone try for it, but maybe I can hope and pray.

I foresee an ongoing battle, God help me. (And I mean that last bit literally!) Hopefully, it will be one worth waging, because me beating this same dead horse is getting both you and me nowhere.

Trust

Can I trust you?
I don't know you,
But you're credentialed for trust.
By that I mean, You can trust me
is the promise written in
the letters the state of Pennsylvania
let you tack onto your name.

But can I trust you
with the most awful parts of me?
The sad, bad, shameful parts,
the used-to-be me parts I keep
tucked away like pus-filled abscesses
in the darkest corner of my soul?

Will you listen to my story, 
one of twists and turns and
deep, dark pits?
Do you have the patience?
The compassion?
The wisdom to understand
what I still can't understand myself?

Can you forgive me?
Can you show me how
to forgive myself?

The Arrows of Time and Regret

Time is an arrow
On a one-way flight from then to now,
Implacable and irreversible.

Regret is an arrow
On a one-way flight from then to now,
Also irreversible.

Two one-way tickets,
One aching wish for a return trip
And a chance to do better.

I'm not the woman I was then,
But maybe not so different after all:
Lash-scarred soul
Still too desperate to please,
Too faint-hearted to be real.

Except for the regret.
The regret is real.
It has weight,
This remorse over wounds inflicted,
Harm that can't be un-dealt
And maybe never truly forgiven.

So I sit, weighed down,
Heart cramping,
Not for myself,
But for him.
It would be so much easier to hurt for me
Than to hurt, helplessly, with him,
Recognizing myself as the impacted thorn.

But time is an arrow
On a one-way flight from then to now,
Implacable and irreversible.

Is redemption possible
For either of us?