Who Is My Depression?
“I think of it as a little child that needs comforting.”
One of my teen-aged children taught me a valuable lesson about mental illness. We were together in a counselling session. As we often do when discussing all sorts of illnesses, the counsellor had been using metaphors of conflict. We “fight” a cold, we “battle” cancer; and similarly, the counsellor, in an effort to motivate my teen, was asking them to “confront” and “combat” the anxiety that was severely limiting their growth and enjoyment of life.
“I don’t like to think of my anxiety as an enemy,” my teen said.
I Didn’t Know
I couldn’t stop crying, and I didn’t know why.
It was a Sunday morning in October, 2005. Andrew had gone early to church, to one leadership meeting or another. It was my job to get the six kids into Bubba, our big old van, pick up my neighbor and her brood, and drive us all to the chapel. My neighbor’s kids would fight over who got to sit by my two-year-old and help him out of his car seat when we got there. Andrew would be waiting with a bench saved for us, primed for the all-hands-on-deck operation of keeping our family contained, quiet, and - with luck - listening, during the sacrament service. I did this every week. It was a challenge, but I like to be challenged.
Finding The Words
I lost four children to miscarriage.
My goal today is just one sentence - one sentence that adequately states what I experienced between October 2005 and June 2008. It's harder than you might think.
It’s Not Your Job To Decide
Years ago, I attended a presentation by a man who worked in investigations of child sexual assault. The purpose of his presentation was simple: teach us what to do if we ever heard a child disclose that they had been assaulted. (In a nutshell: call the authorities. Don’t ask the child any more questions, because you might compromise a police investigation.)
I had a question for our presenter. I cringe to admit I asked this, but I did, and I needed to hear the answer.
“Suppose I get a disclosure from a child with a history of lying,” I asked, “How do I know whether or not to take it seriously?”
What Is My Depression?
What is depression? It is an illness, not an identity.
Looking back I know I’ve been dealing with depression since at least my thirteenth Christmas, a day when I cried myself to sleep in a haze of sadness that descended from nowhere. I loved Christmas; nothing had occurred to disappoint me; there was no reason at all for the despair that engulfed me. There were more days like that to come.
I remember a year and a half into my time at university (pertinently, just after Christmas vacation had ended), running upstairs . . . .
I’ve Been Listening
I reflected on my conversations of the last week with deep satisfaction. “I’ve been listening.”
Brief story from my single adult days. I had two friends - let’s call them Herbert and Mabel, since those most definitely aren’t their real names. I’d usually see both of them a couple of times a week at the university medical school library (I wasn’t in medical school, but the cool kids hung out there) or the “Institute” - a student center for my church just off campus. One week, I was bemused to realize that in our little snatches of conversation, both of these friends were telling me the same story.
On Monday, Herbert said, “I’ve got a big decision to make.”
Between 2005 and 2008, I lost four tiny babies to miscarriage. In an effort to help others who may be experiencing similar losses, I want to share the story of that journey. If you click on the title above, and then follow the “Next in Miscarriage Journey” links at the bottom of each post, you can read through my story sequentially.