Hello you. You're lovely.

This is the fifth and final part in a series on self-care for care-givers. Physicians, nurses, mommas, pastors, teachers and unsung care-givers of every stripe I hope you find something restorative here. Post 1, Caregiver, Love Thyself, Post 2, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 1, Post 3, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 2, Post 4, But...The Lord Told Me To, Post 5, Tapped Out.

As we wrap up this series, I want to pose a few questions all caregivers need to face. The answers to these questions help you know/see yourself more fully, and that makes your work most meaningful and fulfilling.

Question 1: Why do I want to be a _________?
Knowing why you're a caregiver is critical to how you do that work. In counseling school they made us write out our answer to "why do you want to be a counselor." I think every caregiving profession should make this a requisite. The truth is, an honest assessment of yourself will reveal some altruistic motives, and some deep personal needs. You need to know both. Unacknowledged needs drive us. They take over our actions. It's no crime. It's entirely human to be helping others for personal reasons. However, when we have no way of owning that truth, and understanding those motivators, they undermine us and put an unfair pressure on the recipient of our care to perform in ways they can't know, and we may not even be able to articulate.

Owning the truth of our needs helps us put an emotional check in place when we see ourselves place those demands on others. All of us have places that need healing. Sometimes we use our work to keep from confronting that pain.  

the enemy of suicide is intimacy

Robin Williams has died -- apparently of suicide. In seconds social media exploded with the news. America's gut wrenched because the man had us all figured out. Made us smile. Made us belly laugh. Made our eyes twinkle -- even the crustiest among us.

In seconds social media exploded, and mere moments later the pontificating started. I read a post exclaiming that suicide is the "most selfish act of all." The gnawing feeling of grief infused with the acidic feeling of anger.

Suicide is the most lonely act.

I've been suicidal. I suffered post partum depression. The gory images of ending my own confused, chaotic moments came to me unbidden. Suicide has nothing to do with selfishness or generosity. It is no more generous or selfish to live in agony than to die in agony. 

Agony of depression. Of loneliness. Of grief unfettered and out of control. Sometimes it results from chemical and hormonal imbalances. Sometimes those things result from prolonged emotional and physical suffering. Your own body and mind turn against you, whispering ugly, forceful things. And the disease of depression effectively shutters you from friends and family -- the ones with the antidotes to the lies.

The survivors after a suicide suffer tremendously. The grief from this loss is complicated -- draconian. Even more so because this form of death we know the individual should have - could have - escaped. There is choice involved. But it's not so simple. The suicidal person cannot see the choices in front of them. The persistence of intrusive thoughts, the proximity of the means of destruction, the depression-imposed isolation cutting them off from relationships that could speak wiser words and choices -- all flow into a seemingly pre-selected path.

That's why we say someone is a "victim of suicide." Because they are swept up in something bigger than them.

Imagine shooting rapids on the Colorado River, without raft, paddle, life vest, guide, or companion.

Suicide is intensely lonely. Tragic. Devastating. Life and promise ending for the victim and the survivor. Its power is fueled and protected by depression encased isolation.

I suffered my suicidal thoughts and images for weeks - weeks - before I told my therapist or husband. Catch that? I was already in therapy. And those of you familiar with my story know that I counseled suicidal clients while obtaining my masters in counseling. No one should have been better equipped to deal than me.

Others suffer years. Our society rarely gives voice or forum to the mentally and emotionally agonized.

Whittling something so complicated down to an act somehow about the healthy person ("you're selfish to do this because you didn't think of me") misses all the points.

The enemy of suicide is intimacy, not judgment. Please read what our friend Kate wrote:

Depression is way more serious than one would think. It can twist our brains in such a way that we think death is our only option for peace and escape from the debilitating pain it causes. It eats away at me every day despite how hard I work to fight it.

If you need help and you need someone to remind you that you mean so much to them and they can't fathom their life without you, let me be that person. You are loved and it will get better.

If suicide seems like your answer, it isn't. The words, the visions, the thoughts are lies. In my belief, you are intended for the life you have, purposed to live your days -- a being the world needs, and you bear the image of Divine. Depression sucks all your energy, making the most important thing to do -- reaching out to another human -- the hardest thing. Do it anyway. Bring someone inside your heart, as Kate offered, to speak the truth of love. It will get better.

I told my OB about the thoughts, after my therapist reminded me most people don't have visions of shooting themselves in the head. I started an anti-depressant, and intensified my therapy.

I have recovered from my suicidal thoughts. Although, they leave an oily residue -- like glass after wiping off grease. Sometimes, when things feel intense, I see through that section of the glass, and it frightens me. I tell my husband. I speak it out loud so I can hear the ugliness of it, instead of being wooed by it playing quietly in my head.

It's seeing myself mirrored in his eyes, hearing truth from his lips, that I see falsehood for what it is.

For Survivors
I know your heart is busted. You may feel intense guilt. And probably a hell of a lot of anger. The anger is normal. Don't rush past that feeling. The trick is to experience it without getting lost in it. But do relieve yourself of that guilt. Examine yourself. Learn from the moments you had, or didn't have, with your lost one. But remember the rapids we talked about up there? They were caught in something big and terrifying. The result wasn't your fault.

For the Healthy-Minded
For those of us who have the strength, the health, the hope, the presence of mind and truth -- may we pour those gifts into the lives of the friends and family hurting among us. May we combat the lies of the disease with love. You did not cause the sickness. You cannot cure it. But you can participate in its cure.



 

alone, not lonely

I used to drive until I reached half my tolerance for driving, then drive home. Windows down. Music loud. Or no music at all. Sun on my face. Long hair streaming. Then short hair whipping. Satisfied in my aloneness, that warm sun, and deafening wind were the end, not some physical, mappable location.

Later, I met someone to brave the wind and sun with me. I no longer drove, but rode. Windows down. Sunglasses on. Warm boy beside me. Alone in a sense, as the wind drove conversations into my mind, but together.

Then the dark years. These years, after marriage began, after seminary ended, these years a deep rot set into my mind. Alone, never. Lonely, always. Dark fears, long nights of crying, of unbearable guilt, of depression. I never adventured, alone, or with my love. Wandering became unsafe. Exactly one corner of one couch in my house felt safe, and only then with knees tucked up.

Today, in a rare instance since the birth of my daughter, I had hours to myself. My favorite ritual these days is my shower, and in that space, I felt the scar that guided Valentine into the world. A smirk, a lopsided grin low slung across my belly. For the first time, in my aloneness, I did not run from that scar. I did not run from myself in busyness. Atypically, I laid no plans. I stood in the shower, and mourned my previously pristine tummy, and smooth, sunny rides, and untethered life. I felt a calmness in the mourning – a connectedness to myself, and my new, rich reality.

Then, the broken world crept in. A wayward brother broke my parents’ hearts anew – the only means he has left of breaking mine. I read of bitter strife as the god-family fights over who gets to eat at our table – and deliberately leaves out many. I felt the old fears knocking. The old agonies pressing against me. Heretical beliefs these, the ones that tell me when I’m connected, when I experience good life, bad must happen. I pushed them aside to hold my mom together with a good vacuuming, and her favorite, hot and sour soup. I chose to live the entanglement of family. I lost the happy calm.

I shared my day with my therapist, and after the staccato repeating of it, felt the memories of my former legato drives rising into the space between us. I felt the urge to edit. What could that possibly have to do with anything? I told him anyway. I told him of the shower, and the scar, and the mourning, and the contentment, and it all fell together for me.

I think my desire to experience aloneness demonstrates great growth. Today, I lived alone, for a few hours, and even after the confusion of a grief-packed day, the traces of it still wafted to me, until I followed them down, and named them. I named my choices and changes. I named the gift of aloneness. I remembered and lingered over the sense of sun and wind.

Driving home, I dropped the windows. I selected back ways that took me miles from the normal path. I played the music until I could feel it, and sang it until the world heard me. The sun. The wind. The hair. The baby’s car seat behind me. The mom car. My new rich reality.