This is Us

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The View From Here..

School ended today at 12pm. By 12:20pm I had four extra kids in the house – two friends of my son and two friends of my daughter. They all came home from school with us and will all spend the night. It’s a huge “Welcome to Summer” celebration.

Earlier today as I was leaving work and heading to the grocery store to stock up for 6 hungry kids, I told my co-workers that this party was either the best idea I have ever had, or the worst. So far, so good. They ate enough food to feed a dozen kids at lunch, they’ve played video games, had water fights, and nerf battles. All together in a big pack. It’s been so much fun to watch (as I have been attempting to get in a couple more hours of work sitting in the yard.)

Right now the boys are in the living room playing video games, and the girls are in my daughter’s room whispering and giggling. There is peace and harmony and joy in the land of preteens as they ease into their summer break. And the current view from my outdoor “office space” is this…

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That is the remains of water balloon fights, nerf battles and hot tub dunking. It is the loveliest, most joyful mess I have seen in a long time. Its existence proves how far my son has come since this time last year. The beginning of last summer was right after my son had hit rock bottom in his battle with anxiety, panic and depression. While this was clearly hardest on him, his behavior, actions and choices for many months last spring and summer had the net result of our entire family being hostage. We did not have people over because there were too many possibilities for the visit to end poorly.

This time last year, we were all just trying to survive. This time last year, the long and empty days of summer seemed desolate and daunting. This time last year, there was no celebrating.

But today there is laughter, and joy, and fun, and friends, and beautiful messes. Today there is celebration and eager anticipation for what the summer will bring. Today the view from where I sit is incredibly good.

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A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words…

We are in the swift downhill race to the end of elementary school for my son. Every single day there is some celebration marking the end of the class of 2017’s time at the school. 

Today that celebration was an awards ceremony honoring academic achievement. My smarty pants, loves school, never met a book he didn’t like kid went into the morning knowing he would receive an award and was eagerly excited when he woke up this morning. 

Even with that excitement, the actual act of sitting in a cafeteria full of other kids and parents was hard for him. He is doing so much better at keeping his anxiety in check, but crowds, noise, anticipation and that cafeteria all remain individual triggers. Put together, he could have been sitting in the middde of a perfect storm. At this exact awards ceremony last year, he could not even enter the cafeteria – he listened from outside the doors. 

But today he managed to get a win over his triggers and demons. Today he sat in the midst of the other kids, cheered his friends and classmates on as a couple dozen awards were given out before his name was even called, and walked proudly and confidently up to the stage when his own name was called as a recipient of the President’s Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence. In other words – he rocked it!

I took gobs of pictures during and after the ceremony. Some show him solemnly examining his award, some show him beaming with pride, one shows him with his amazingly kind and wonderful teacher, and a couple even show him goofing off with friends. But this picture is the one I know I’ll treasure most over time. 

This picture of his back (and the back of his sister’s head) tells the part of the story I think matters most. The story isn’t that he’s an excellent student with a crazy smart brain. That’s amazing, and we’re super proud of his academic achievements, but it’s not what really matters here. What matters here is the fact that he is in the room. We could tell he was about to burst out of his skin at several points during the ceremony, but he didn’t give in. He fought through the anxiety and was a true participant in a huge personal milestone moment. From our seats in the chairs behind the kids, we were able to witness him truly being present for himself and with his peers. And it was beautiful. 

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Bearing Each Other’s Burdens

I was honored, and a little (okay a lot!) nervous to be invited as the featured speaker at Atascadero United Methodist Church as part of their annual Mental Health Awareness Sunday. The key word to me in that sentence is “annual”…..every year for the past few years they have set aside one Sunday in the month of May to shine a light on fact that mental illness is widespread and that we all need to do out part to break down the stigma that continues to persist. In a world where most people are still to frightened by the thought of mental illness to really begin to understand mental illness, this congregation is actively searching for understanding and for ways to turn that understanding into action.

I am not an expert. I am a mother with a story to tell. A story that I tell because I know there is great power in giving names to the things that feel frightening. A story that I hope helps to break down the stigma surrounding childhood and adolescent mental illness. A story that I know touched the hearts and minds of the people at Atascadero UMC this past weekend.

Take a look, and see if perhaps that story touches you as well…Bearing Each Other’s Burdens – Atascadero UMC; May 7, 2017

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The Is Us; 2017

One year ago today I hit publish on “a little project” I’d been working on.

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Today I went back and read the post that started what has become an incredible journey. Take a peek and see where we started.

We’re in a much better place in general today than we were when I wrote that post. We have words to name things in a way we did not at this time last year. And we have all found our own voices and own ways of narrating our story for the world. As a family we are changing the dialogue. There are still dark moments, hours & days. But the light spaces in between have stretched. There is still a lot of who we are to be found in that original post, but it’s not where the story ends.

And as for me and that “little project”… 12 months, 76 blog posts, 6 articles published on The Mighty (including one co-authored by my son), 7,000 people in 60 countries reading those words and hopefully finding encouragement to find their own voices.

Here’s to another trip around the sun…

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Love, Faith, and Anxiety

Maundy Thursday is the day that Christians commemorate the gathering of Jesus and his disciples for the Last Supper. Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum, meaning commandment, in reference to Jesus’ teachings about a new commandment. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John. 13:34-35, NRSV). That piece of scripture, and it’s message,  has been woven into my life for as long as I can remember, but last night I felt those words in a way I had never experienced them before.

I’ve written before about the internal struggle my son wages between his love for God and church, and his inability to be in large groups of people. After a year on medication to ease his anxiety, he is generally good on Sunday mornings – he knows what to expect, can position himself in the sanctuary in a way that offers an unobstructed escape route, and has figured out how to entirely avoid the over-peopled parts of church. He has found a balance that allows him to participate in worship and fellowship, without being too overwhelming.

But every now and then, he finds himself in a situation at church that is outside of his comfort zone.  With the decrease in predictability comes an increase in the potential for anxiety or a panic attack. Such was the case last night as we observed Maundy Thursday.

He was trying so hard to stay in control. I could see it and I could feel it in his tense body seated next to me. But shortly after we were seated – in a sanctuary that was darker than he is accustomed to, in a seating arrangement completely different from on a Sunday morning, in a worship service filled with heart wrenching words and haunting music – he realized he was not in control. And his chosen means of attempting to hold off the panic attack was to bury his head in my lap and squeeze his eyes tightly shut.

So it was that I found my sweet boy – who is almost as big as me – curled into my lap as the words of this Taize chant washed over us both…”Nothing can trouble. Nothing can frighten. Those who seek God shall never go wanting. God alone fills us.” Over and over I heard and sang those words which were simultaneously heart breaking and soul filling. My heart broke for Jesus, for the world at large and for my son – as I sat holding my son, I felt my heart-break wide open.

The message of Maundy Thursday is love. Love in its purest form. Love for one another. Love in action. And while I am still reeling from the pain of last night, in the light of this day I know that above all else it is our collective love and faith that will see my son through this world.

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Look Closer…

One year ago today….

This was a picture perfect day as captured from the rooftop deck at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I remember the first part of the day being a lovely family outing. And there are dozens of other pictures taken that morning which support my memory. 

But shortly after this picture was taken, our son had his first debilitating panic attack. In the middle of the aquarium, we all had our first experience with the wave of panic washing over him and sending him to the floor in a fetal position. It was possibly the most frightening moment of my life. And was certainly a turning point in my son’s story. 

Just 2 days before this picture was taken, we had made an appointment with a psychiatrist to discuss the possibility of medication. If there was any doubt left lingering that our boy needed the support of medication, that disappeared as we helplessly watched him first huddling on the floor in the middle of a crowd and then watched as he ran searching for an exit from the building. 

That day marked the beginning of a long series of days and weeks and months that were colored by fear and exhaustion for all of us. Because even though medication was only weeks away from this date, it took a long time for us to see and feel the effect. 

Everything you just read? That’s what all flashed through my head as I saw this picture pop up in Timehop this morning. It was an awful lot of emotion and memory before 7am. 

But then I looked closer. I looked at the picture again, and I saw how far we’ve come this year. On that day we didn’t even yet have an actual diagnosis. We were still searching and trying desperately to get to an answer before something went terribly wrong. On this day, a year later, we have the diagnoses and answers and experience to better handle whatever his brain or life might throw at us. We are so much better equipped. And while we know there are likely more dark days to come (that will masquerade as sunny and picture perfect), we also know we can fight that darkness. 

So look closer. Look closer and you can see both the broken and the beautiful. 

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MFEO

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.

My son announced last week that he wasn’t going to take Valentine cards to school this year. He said he just doesn’t care about it anymore. He’s in 5th grade, so the announcement didn’t really surprise me (although I did double-check today that he really, really meant it and was prepared to do a last-minute run to get whatever was left on the shelf at Target – but he is standing by his decision).

My daughter has spent much of the last week preparing cards for her classmates and personalized gifts for her besties. She doesn’t “do pink” anymore, but my guess is she’ll be decked out in red and hearts when she heads to school tomorrow.

My husband heard our son talking about the Google Doodle being new for Valentine’s Day this morning and had a moment when he thought today might be February 14th and checked with me to make sure he hadn’t missed it.

I have little gifts stashed away for my husband and the kids. My husband will actually be on an overnight business trip tomorrow night, so I will probably take the kids out for dinner between afternoon therapy and evening aerial. If my husband was home, the only way the day would look different would be a quick dinner at home between afternoon therapy and evening aerial.

This will be our 24th Valentine’s Day together. And while the holiday has never been a day we marked with grand romantic gestures, the celebration has certainly scaled itself back over the years. While I would adore a date night out with my husband, at this point in my life I actually cringe at the thought of having that date on Valentine’s Day in a crowded restaurant, while also paying the “parent tax” for the babysitter and pizza back at home.

All that said though, I am feeling a bit more sentimental this year. The little gift I got for my husband is a nod to a younger version of ourselves and also a glimpse of what our future selves may become. It’s sappy and a little goofy and won’t make sense to anybody but us. It’s perfect. And for the first time in a long time, I found myself wanting to find something perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Life has become a kind of hard that our 18-year-old, or 25-year-old, or even 35-year-old selves could have never imagined. And while the days are a little easier now than they were at this time last year, we know there are still tough times ahead. But there is something our 19-year-old selves knew, that remains true to this day, and it is what gets us through the darkest of dark days.

In 1993, our 19-year-old selves saw the movie Sleepless in Seattle, and as a couple we became infatuated with the idea in the movie that certain people are M-F-E-O….made for each other. Corny. I know. Even back then I knew. But I’ve decided I need a little more corny and sappy and sweet and lovely in my life. In a world where so little makes sense and so much is heartbreaking, my husband is my rock. It hasn’t always been easy – we haven’t always been easy – but that’s all a part of our evolving love story. In 24 years worth of Valentine’s Days we have cycled through several versions of ourselves as individuals and as a couple, but the constant is love and even though we don’t need an “official” holiday to celebrate that love, it is a nice excuse to remember and share a little bit of our love story.

So this is for Him. The man who is my partner in life and parenting,  my biggest supporter and by my side as we navigate this journey. It’s not always easy, and I’m not always easy to love, but we were MFEO.

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