NPM 2018: Recovered (Day 24)

Recovered
Written April 24, 2018

I sat leisurely
at the keyboard
and typed this out.
I sipped iced tea
in the springtime
and didn't recall
your thoughts
on cherry blossoms
until they were gone.
I sold a painting
and left the state
and had a crisis
and recovered
and didn't tell you
anything.
Maybe this year
I'll stop
writing poems
about you.

Nevermind.

Tis the Season

At the end of every year there is a burning light, and throughout each month the distance from that light becomes less and less as we trundle towards it. When we reach the end, the world is dark--we have passed through sunrise, daylight, and starlit nights, and the flame is nearly gone. We blow it out or watch it fade just in time. Somewhere on the horizon someone strikes another match, another flame blazes into the darkness, and we start over again.

But for me, this year, I never seemed to get any nearer to the light. Despite how I anxiously scrambled toward its glow, it was snuffed out before I got a chance to reach it. When this happens, reaching the next light is rather impossible. It hasn't been lit. When this happens, there is a great deal of wandering in the dark without any guidance or sense of direction, and we may not even see the next light when it is lit because we get lost.

If this sounds familiar or resonates with you somehow, there's a chance you've experienced depression the same way I have.

I have written, albeit briefly, about my depression a handful of times on this blog. I prefer not to talk about it on this platform because in spite of the decreasing amount of stigma surrounding the issue, there are still individuals who are not "safe" people to tell. There is the person who once told my eighth grade English class in a reprimanding tone, "Happiness is a choice." In addition, there are still people who will respond to another's depression with comments like, "It could be worse," and to add to their blithe statements, will often give examples of people who have it worse.

In any case, this post is not written for those people.

This post is written, first of all, for the people like me: The people who get it, who have been there in the dark too. However, it's also for the people who may have stood back and been confused by my irregular temperament. It is for those who were shocked by aggressive words or ignorant statements, by my impulsive actions or dramatic reactions, or even periods of what looks like laziness. If I seemed overly sad about something you thought was insignificant, if I was so excited about something I appeared agitated and ill-composed, or if you ever thought that my behavior was out of character--this year, or any year--it is likely because of depression.

I am not going to apologize for my feelings. They were real to me, even if they weren't realistic. I am only going to apologize if my behavior caused pain, confusion, or distress of any kind. You don't need to let me know if I hurt or disappointed you; just know that I am sorry, and I hope you will forgive me.

I have been able to cope with this, most days. I have a fairly reliable support system and people who will talk me through things. Sometimes the support system is there before I do something regrettable, but sometimes they are simply there for me in the backlash. And for the last several years I have not been overwhelmed by the depression that was so terribly consuming during high school and the year after. I felt relatively stable until this year, and following my surgery this February I realized that things were slipping out of place. I had a stressful spring and summer, and over the fall months it worsened until it suddenly came to a peak and I realized that for the first time in my life...

...this is real, and even with the proper support system in place, it is not going away. 

As a teenager the tumultuous experience of depression could have been blamed on an awful boyfriend or ridiculous hormones. As an adult I am distinctly aware that this is not how things should be. I have walked toward the light at the end of this year and watched it go out, and I know I do not deserve to wander aimlessly through the darkness.

Happiness is not a choice. Happiness is not even the goal. Happiness is a temporary, fleeting thing--and it is not the thing I want.

Yes, other people have it "worse," but that does not mean anyone has the right to dismiss my pain or decide that I am the antagonist in my own story.

I have taken steps to find healing and new ways to manage my depression, but it will be an extremely difficult first week. (My doctor essentially told me I should expect to feel varying degrees of awful.) That being said, I do not have time for those who refuse to respect the severity of this issue, or for those who won't acknowledge how imperative it is that I receive the support for which I am asking.

So I am taking a break this week.  From the people and situations which have hurt me, knowingly or not. From the people who don't understand. From the mindless, desensitized, media-driven world.

From Sunday, December 13th through Saturday December 19th I will not be on Facebook. You can feel free to text or call me (only non-advice conversations), and I will do my best to respond to messages on Facebook. There's a chance I will use Instagram and I might be present here on the blog (both automatically send updates to FB) but I haven't decided yet. Mostly I just want to avoid the senseless scrolling and the following fogginess.

And there you have it. Even writing this made me anxious... I worry that expressing my feelings and being vulnerable here will somehow have terrible consequences. Anyways. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I would appreciate any prayers you can offer, and encouraging notes/messages/calls/etc. are definitely accepted. As I said before, I'll do my best to respond if I'm feeling up to the task. Hopefully I'll be back in a week with a new light. :)


-K

Recess

While tutoring a ten-year-old today I came across the word 'recess.' He had two long lists of words to study, and this was one of them. I varied the studying methods--a definition there, a spelling here, a sentence for each one. I asked him what recess was and he said, "When you get to play!" I agreed, then reminded him it could also just mean a break.

It immediately brought me back to my own ten-year-old self, and all the recesses I was forced to endure. As an adult I am more aware of the rest of the word--it offers us a break from real life, a respite from the day-to-day or the overwhelming. It could mean we take a long bath or go for a walk or snuggle with a fluffy dog. Maybe it means hot cups of coffee with friends or watching hours of Netflix or going swimming.

As a child, it was strictly for playing outside. I grew up in Washington state, and our school took recess very seriously. We had one mid-morning and another right after lunch, and it had to be raining (not drizzling, which is more common) in order for recess to be held inside.

I loved indoor recess, but not for the reasons you might think. I actually loved playing outside. At home, I would spend hours playing in the woods, climbing trees and riding my bike down a dangerously steep hill. I had scraped knees and slivers and weird tan lines on my legs from hours spent rollerblading. Being outside in my own domain was a thrill and a joy.

But being outside on a playground where some unknown "Recess Duty" would admonish me if I didn't have a ball in my hand or wasn't swinging on the monkey bars was more like a punishment. I was also extremely shy, extremely terrified of strangers and confrontation, and so the prospect of being approached by the Recess Duty because I wasn't "playing" scared me to death.

I wanted to be inside reading--which is, of course, why I loved rainy days and indoor recess. I loved curling up with a book in my classroom's library, or coloring vast landscapes at my desk until the bell rang again. There is something depressing about the fact that 'play' used to only mean running, jumping, or climbing. I hate that the other kinds of play, the kinds I was so connected to as a kid, were somehow considered lazy or less beneficial.

As I went on a sort of emotional adventure last weekend, this weekend I'll be taking another break from the real world--a recess, you might say. It's time for another road trip, for sure. In recent weeks I have been overwhelmed by doctors and recovering and bad news, and the turmoil of knowing it's all going to get more painful and overwhelming before any of it gets better. Starting next week I have my first post-op appointment, so before all of it begins...

I'm taking a recess. I'm going to play. I'm going to be with friends. We'll watch movies, drink tea, maybe even read books or draw pictures. I'm going to take a break and play in the way that most benefits me. I don't even care if it's raining.

I Gotta Feeling

As I'm sure some of you have already discovered at this point in your lives, there is no rule book for feelings. There are unwritten, unspoken rules, unclear rules like "don't make mountains out of molehills" and "don't cry over spilled milk." The problem is, even unwritten and unspoken those rules are more about what you do with your feelings that how to have them. The Bible tells us a lot about actions--don't steal, don't kill, don't sleep with your neighbor's wife--things we should or should not do when we feel certain things. We should act on our forgiveness, and not on our lust. We are commanded to love, which might seem like a feeling, but we know it isn't. It also falls under the "behavior" or action category. The Bible doesn't say, "Always be happy" or "Never be angry" or "Stop being such a grumpy pants."

This leads to a life full of questions about the way we feel. Feelings are these complex, intangible things that prompt us to speak out of turn or behave in bizarre ways. If we happen to understand the Bible a little bit we know that certain feelings should not make us act--our most passionate anger should not cause us to kill someone or act violently. It's also true that even if we never follow the directions about how to act, we do know where to look for those rules, and even if we don't feel the Bible will lead us to the answers, they are still prevalent in most societies. Don't kill. Don't steal. Respect other human beings. These are commonplace rules about what to do or not do with our feelings. But there is still a chasm of uncertainty about how to simply have feelings in the first place.

To some this might seem like God doesn't care about our feelings, that he put them out there for us to use without any proper guidelines--but it's the opposite. If he didn't care, he wouldn't allow us to have them, wouldn't give us opportunities to let our feelings push us in one direction or another. He wants us to have them, to some degree. And we certainly have them. We have them often, inappropriately, unnecessarily, abundantly, intensely, and sometimes they come out of nowhere. But the problem with feelings, even after you've figured out how to have them, is that most of the time that's not enough. We want to do things with our feelings, and that's why the rules about actions are so much clearer than the rules about possession (so to speak) of feelings.

This is why we have thirteen-year-old Katie professing her "love" for a thirteen-year-old boy. (Granted, my friends convinced me that I had to tell him, but they were also thirteen.) 

This is why people bite their nails and smash things and flip people off in the car.

This is why we have dating sites and music therapy and talk shows and... drugs?

See, in spite of the fact that there aren't really any rules about your feelings, you can still expect to have them, and you can still expect the world to tell you what you should do with them. Nobody on earth really knows what you should do, but they'll tell you anyways. They'll tell you to go after that girl/guy you are hopelessly in love with, and to let go of your anger because it leads nowhere good (which is a bold-faced lie, fyi). These are the same people who believe "happiness" is the end-all be-all in life and that you can choose it, therefore your clinical depression is a mind-over-matter issue and that, of course, all your other feelings are also dictated by your attitude.

All. Lies.

I firmly believe that all of our feelings and emotions are valid, and by that I mean we are entitled to feel things even if we got to that feeling by mistake. For example, I once had a delicious cup of coffee I had been saving and I left it on the table while I went to the bathroom. When I returned it was half gone, and I was irritated because I thought my husband had done it. It was actually the dog. My irritation was valid, simply because something important to me (my cup of coffee) had been violated or compromised. If I had punched my husband in the face in my irritation, I would be in the wrong. However, simply feeling irritated because something went wrong is completely reasonable. I would have had the same emotion if I had spilled my own coffee. You can see how this would apply to other situations. The actions which our emotions lead us to are not always valid, but the way we possess our feelings is justifiable. 

I mentioned the other day the tiny bottle brimming with ibuprofen that I was prescribed after my surgery. At first glance, I thought, "Well, I'm gonna be needing those!" They wouldn't give me so many if I wasn't going to need them, right? I will be feeling pain and therefore I should want to get rid of it. 

And at first I told myself I didn't need them. And then I did. And I do right now.

But if I had wanted to, I could have said, "Nope. No pills for me! I'm invincible!" I didn't say that, because I don't actually enjoy pain, but I could have. I could have chosen to fully feel the pain--I would have been choosing pain over all other feelings. I would have chosen pain over the joy of reading a good book, over the relaxation of a hot shower, over restful sleep and being able to eat without feeling nauseated, over laughter and long conversations and coherent thoughts.

What I'm really trying to say is that in the face of different feelings, we get to choose which one to focus on. It doesn't mean the pain is gone, or that I am completely at ease with all of this post-surgery nonsense. I am not. I am quite suddenly bombarded with the confusing burden of "pre-cancer" and there is definitely a part of me that just wants to panic and be sad. And yet, there is this other part of me, this resilient part that is absorbing the support of all my beloved friends and this part of me feels unstoppable, unshakable, unafraid. There is something so uplifting about knowing that if I wanted to scream and cry there would be support all around me. If I want to do the opposite, if I want to find joy and beauty in the midst of the pain, I find support there as well.

So I am taking those painful feelings and I'm going to put them in my pocket for a little while. I'm going to take a break from being sad and just let myself be at peace.

The pain and fear and panic are present, but only among so many other things to feel, and to do. I'm about to have an incredible weekend, during which I will get to support some wonderful people and in turn be supported. I'm going to work hard, and in that space if I find myself sad or anxious or joyful or excited, the support will still be there.  I'm going to feel all my feelings and it's going to be beautiful.  Nobody else gets to tell me how to feel. If doing this makes me feel fulfilled, joyful, encouraged, loved, precious, exhilarated, invigorated, or whatever... nothing is going to stop me.  I might hurt at the end of it, but it will be worth every second. This is my pain, and this is what I'm doing with it. 

And so I just want to encourage anyone reading this that you should own your feelings too. Owning them doesn't mean you're going to run people over with your car when you're angry, or call your ex-boyfriend when you're sad, or buy an expensive and unnecessary trampoline when you're really excited about life. (Even though that sounds really awesome, and if anybody actually goes and buys a trampoline, please invite me over to play on it.) You just get to hold your feelings, and look at them, figure out why you have them, and then... you get to decide if you want to something with them. And what sort of thing you might do with them. Or not.

Today I choose to do, to behave fearlessly, and I'm going to feel incredible about every moment... because that's what I've decided.

Recovery, Results, Requests

They gave me this bottle of high-dosage ibuprofen. This little tiny bottle was literally brimming with pills, as if to say, "You're really gonna need these!" My first couple of days home I took them as a precaution, just to ward off the pain I feared would come. Even though I was mostly just sore, they helped, and made me more comfortable if nothing else. By Sunday I was actually feeling some significant pain, so I took them as a necessity. I have a very high pain threshold, but everything is a bit overwhelming right now and the added sensation of sharp stabbies and hard pokies made me very anxious.

Overall I was feeling pretty good about everything. Even the minimal pain I felt was tolerable, the cramping had subsided, and my limbs stopped aching every time I breathed. I knew I was well on the road to healing when I could sneeze without any trouble. I was under the impression that things would soon go back to normal, I would have my post-op appointment with my doctor, and I could begin the process of making tiny humans.

Then yesterday my obgyn called me with the results of the surgery.

This part is hard because I feel like nobody wants to hear it. Nobody really wants to read a blog about my uterus. (Even writing it is weird. It shouldn't be.) It's hard to blur the lines of me vs. my body because I know I'm not writing about my body... I'm writing about me. This story is about me, not my body, not my organs, not my cells. Me.

And I could write all the fancy medical terms to explain what's wrong, except that wouldn't cover it either, since it doesn't really answer much. It doesn't tell us what's wrong overall. It's just a piece of what's wrong, another jot or tittle in the story I'm telling.

So here's the gist of it: I have pre-cancer. There are 4 stages of this particular kind of pre-cancer and I have stage 2. I'm looking at 3-9 months of therapy, the details of which are not yet clear. I also have to have regular colposcopies and biopsies.

If I wasn't clear the other day, the one colposcopy I had back in December was the singularly most painful experience of my entire life. I'm sure that my brain lights up like a Christmas tree when I think about the trauma endured during that procedure. It was not only painful physically, but mentally as well. I felt messed with--I was told I would have a local anesthetic, and I didn't. I was told it would be "relatively painless," and it wasn't.

The fact that I have to go through the same thing regularly is devastating.

Thus, I am here again, asking you all to pray with me. In the face of this painful and confusing situation, I am not about to doubt God. I know he hears me. I don't know why any of this is happening, but I know he hears me. He hears us. So please continue to pray for me and with me. Pray that the therapy is only required for a short time. Pray that the colposcopies and biopsies would be quick, short, and that I would be provided with anesthetic or (even better!) that they would just put me out for the procedure. Pray that this entire thing is merely a detour... and that soon I can move on to the process of becoming a mother.

As a side note... in the spirit of honesty, I want to express how thankful I am for the people who were so indescribably supportive last week after my surgery. It was such a blessing to be able to tell my story on my blog. You not only read my words but you shared your feelings with me afterward. I am grateful for your time and your friendship, and hope you'll stick around as I continue this journey. You are all incredible.

Side note #2... my blog got a makeover. :)