After Therapy Sessions with Myself

I was chatting with my therapist about how I have this pressure on me to make big life decisions right now and it all just feels so daunting.  I have this fear that if I don't figure it out now it won't happen.  I am disillusioned by the things that I wanted to see happen not happening and deeply afraid that nothing will ever happen for me.

I described my vision or motivation in life as these flashes of light.  I explained that before it was like light out everywhere and there was a clear path in front of me. Now it feels like these small flashes here and there that don't seem interconnected in any way.

One of the reasons I always come back to the movie PS I Love you is that embedded in this reverse rom-com is the idea of grief and feeling like your life is never going to begin leading you to understand what you were truly passionate about to begin with.  For years since I first saw the movie I've related so much to the main character in the first scene (I used to watch the first scene on repeat).  I'm deepening my understanding as to why I feel so connected to her insecurities. 

In the first scene, she has an argument with her husband about something he told her mom. What you see unfold is her  her unhappiness and also her deep desire to control everything and make it just right.  When she met her husband they were both artists trying to make their way in the world. Now they are working in regular jobs just trying to survive in New York City. Of course this is relatable to so many people (particularly artists) but, I don't know, I feel the keenness of this relation today probably because it's so clear in the scene that he is happy and secure in who he is and she is not.  I feel this in my own relationship. I feel this in relationship to my art as well.

PS I Love You is a love story- but it's not about her and her husband. From the beginning the set up was the relationship between Holly and herself. That is the most important relationship there is. It takes the entire movie for her to find herself again and discover happiness. 

Now, I don't have a movie budget nor (spoiler alert) a dead Irish husband to show me all of the things I need to see to get myself back to myself. But I do have a therapist and therapy sessions where I talk about myself and confuse the heck out of my therapist with the tangents that I go on. But life is confusing and not necessarily a clear, bright path.  Sometimes it's just flashes. Sometimes it's an argument with your husband.  Sometimes it's death. Sometimes it's writing a confusing blog post you will probably delete later or a song that no one will get to hear you sing or a melody that only you understand and that's ok because it will get you one step closer to happiness and that's what really matters.

Suffering in Silence

 When I felt good I took it for granted that it was not problem at all to chop veggies up and throw them in a pot. Now, on a bad day, it is painful.  But if I don't have fresh food then I'm told I'm not helping myself heal. So I feel guilty (not to mention spend more money) if I buy take out or frozen food.

For someone who generally overanalyzes every decision she makes and often doesn't advocate for herself, I feel very much unable to cope with the after affects of COVID. It's been over a year since I first had symptoms. I now empathize with anyone who has any sort of pain.  I think of how I would support new moms or someone who just had surgery or someone who was grieving the loss of a loved one by offering food and a shoulder to cry on and realize how much I had to learn.

For one thing, it's not just a one time need for one person to accomplish. People don't often continually voice their needs if they are continually in need. It feels like old news.  I thought one time checking in on someone was sufficient. I think now I would check on them multiple times and rally more friends in on the process. 

For another, I would change my approach.  The general rule of thumb for any sort of pain is to listen.  Effective listening does not offer my point of view. Often we think we know what someone is going through or what they should do for themselves or how we can help them but at the end of the day they are the ones that know best.  Offering guidance isn't a bad thing. But finding out what a person really wants from their interaction with you is a good place to start before releasing all of your "knowledge" on them.

I've found more often than not that people do not understand nor do they care to understand what I am going through.  This may seem harsh but the reality is that people automatically judge. It's what we do. I'm guilty of it!  Even when we think we aren't, we are.

Like I said, people don't ask for help.  It takes strategy to realize how to love someone well. I'm learning the more time I spend with social workers that there is a lot of skill and strategy that goes into helping people.  But even when we fail at all of the above, if we still sense someone needs something, it's so worth it to try to help. I'm still overwhelmed by the love I have received, looking back on it. I had a friend drop groceries off for me and my boyfriend. I had people praying for me, calling me, texting me. It was unbelievable how many people cared about me.

When people ask me how I am doing, I often don't know what to say and it's exhausting to try and filter.  The most honest answer without going into details is that I am managing.  I have good days and I have bad days but I am managing.  Does this mean I don't need help? No, it just means I'd rather be around people who acknowledge how much knowledge they actually have about the situation and so I'm not going into it further because I've had too many responses that are frankly ignorant.

I am grateful for this silent suffering because I feel that it makes me even more empathetic towards the millions of other people who suffer in silence and the myriads of reasons as to why they do.

No Better time than Now

I’m new to plants.  A week or so ago I was sad that my plant was browning and thought for sure I had killed it (as I had killed its brother a month prior).  Then something crazy happened.  A new shoot rose obstinately from this very same stalk.  I was overjoyed.  Life from death? Is this even possible?  My hope springing from this plant reminds me of my life in so many ways.

    Unknowingly I’m following some sort of rhythm of written thoughts as I sit down to write and realize that my last post was nearly exactly a month ago. I find it interesting that I spoke prophetically into this season of hope, clinging to the excitement of a new job. Interestingly I spent most of last month in a cloud of depression.

Any new job is an adjustment for anyone. With my limited physical capacity due to long COVID I feared that I would never adjust.  In addition, I was already sad because a year into this I’m still in pain every day.  On top of everything, not knowing I would have a job, I had signed up for two online classes.  All I could physically do was work (mind you, I only work five hours a day), my homework, and sleep.  I would go to work, barely make it through, and then crash for a nap, get up, do my homework, and crash for the night, wake up, and repeat. Two weeks wore into three and I got even more depressed realizing I hadn’t come above water yet.  My mood plummeted.

I got to the point where I had to take a week off from homework. I checked in with my heart and with God. 45 min in the morning and or at night when I was exhausted wasn’t enough for a true heart-to-heart.  I can’t say there wasn’t a dramatic shift in my emotions but I started to be able to at least enjoy one of my classes (I wrote an outline for a musical that I’m proud of), even if I felt the worst physically than I’ve ever felt.  I went to small group and was really raw for two weeks about my sadness and anger (in my mind, though I’m sure people didn’t notice).  And then after two quiet times this week I woke up this morning and the cloud of depression had lifted. I felt the shift.

Two things I noticed right away: I was excited about life and was thinking of socializing not to meet my own needs but to really be a part of a community again. I was also really thankful. I wanted to sing and worship God all morning.

I was reminded of the story of the leper from the Bible who was healed along with a whole group of other lepers.  The others left but this leper came back to Jesus and thanked him for healing him.  Jesus asked, “Where are the others?” I don’t think he meant this as a rule that you’re supposed to thank him. I think the invitation was for relationship. I think that’s always the invitation with Jesus.

The leper could have turned back with the others and still continued to experience his breakthrough. His healing was already manifest.  But there’s a treasure for us when we turn to God whether we have breakthrough, or we don’t.  There’s treasure to be mined in that relationship.

My physical condition has not changed. This has been the most dark and isolating season of my entire life. Yet there’s a sense of hope from my Christian walk that is always present. We can walk in love in the darkness, we can walk in truth in the darkness, but if we don’t have hope in the darkness, we have not turned to Jesus yet.

I will say I didn’t feel hope this whole month despite thinking I was turning to God.  I think that’s perfectly ok! God was speaking all the while, holding my hand, reminding me of who I am. I just couldn’t step into the hope yet, for whatever reason. I do not fully understand this yet but I do know this: we have to be honest about how we feel and be able to hold that in tension with the truth that God is working all things for good. Faith is the bridge between. Sometimes Christians desiring to stir faith (I’m guilty of this) ignore their emotions and proclaim peace when there is no peace.  Jesus held these truths in tension. He wept with Mary for Lazarus and then went to the grave and resurrected him. The Bible is full of these paradoxes. God, furious with evil and ready to defend the cause of the downtrodden holds back and waits and weeps.

I watched Over the Moon last night and I felt like God was speaking to my heart in this last season. Grief and loss are real. But there is a time when it’s healthy and good to let go of the pain and place it in God’s hands.  (This is not to say we will ever stop grieving. Grief comes in cycles.  However, death has lost its hold on the ones who choose life.) No one else can truly discern that time of letting go for us but there is a time.  As Tye Tribbett prophesies in song, “Now is the time to turn back to God.”

New Beginnings. New hope.

Today is a strange new beginning.  I started new job today. I had a few job offers and they both started on this day.  Because I don't believe in coincidences but instead divine inner-workings, I believe there to be some deep significance to it.  Why is this day significant to me? March 16th, 2020, is the day I felt COVID for the first time.

I remember the day before my boyfriend and I had scheduled a double date with one of his friends. Having infinitely more foresight than I, the men cancelled it.  I still was naive, didn't follow world events outside of facebook and twitter.  But for the updates from my roommate, my boyfriend and my boss, I would've been totally in the dark.  My boyfriend bought a thermometer to prepare (at the time we were being told the symptom was a fever).  My boss told me not to come into work. She was afraid of me taking the subway.  I was glad that I had the week off and was excitedly planning it, totally unaware of what was about to ensue.

The next day I didn't feel well.  Jeff (my boyfriend) was going for one of his long runs so he swung by. He brought the thermometer and we checked my temperature. It was normal.  I've never checked my temperature so much in my life, convinced that if I didn't have that I must not have COVID.  I didn't feel well though and this continued.

I can't remember the day it first lifted.  But there were a few days like this back in the early days where I thought I was all better again.  I would have a burst of energy and feel back to my normal self.  I went for runs. I enjoyed myself. Then, a few weeks later, I would crash with these unbearable bouts of fatigue and aches all over my body. This continued until I finally realized something terrible: this wasn't going away. In fact, over exerting myself just made things worse.

In July of 2020 I left a rally in times square in intense pain in my knees.  I had heard about people with COVID developing blood clots and I feared the worst.  When I went to urgent care about my knees I was told it was arthritis. This arthritis would develop throughout my body: my feet, my wrists, my elbows, but most notably my knees.  Studies about this new post viral arthritis didn't come out until October so I felt like no one knew what I was going through.  This is when I reached my breaking point.

I am what's considered a long hauler.  The hypothesis of doctors is that for some people the sympathetic nervous system was affected. Now my body seems to be constantly in a state of reacting to something. It's put stress on every organ.

I saw 3 doctors (4 if you count the original one at the urgent care clinic). I emotionally exploded on the doctor who looked at my knee in July (this was not new either.  I cried on the phone a few months earlier trying to get a COVID test unsuccessfully).  I explained my journey with COVID and how I believed they were related.  The urgent care doctor wrapped my knee, prescribed Naproxen, and officially told me she thought it was arthritis.  It was only after the visit when she bumped into me in the hall that she told me in hushed tones that I might be right since studies are coming out all the time about different effects of COVID. 

The second doctor was supposed to be my PCP. I wasn't able to see her until August.  I was going to the office for the first time and apparently picked the woman who went on maternity leave literally right after our visit. So I explained everything to her and she sent me to a clinic in Manhattan for long haulers who didn't accept me because I didn't have antibodies. She had told me to tell her and she would refer me to specialists if they didn't accept me. I couldn't reach her. I was told I had to make another appointment with another doctor to do this.  The appointment wasn't for another month.  Meanwhile, I was in pain and lacking answers since July. When finally I saw this doctor in September, he did a bunch of bloodwork and referred me to a rheumatologist. The rheumatologist prescribed the same medication both the last doctor and the original urgent care doctor prescribed and sent me on my way (with a hefty $600 bill to boot that the office didn't file with insurance correctly so I thought I had to pay).

I will say she was the only doctor who listened well to me, kept in contact with me, and explained post-viral athralgia to me. She also suggested I bike when I asked her about cardio workouts I could do, which is interesting because gripping things hurts.  Not being able run has been (ironic to me) my biggest challenge.  I've put on weight. I don't feel like myself.  My latest hurdle that I was not expecting was  being jobless and not being able to accept work that I would normally be able to do physically like stand or walk a lot.

I have to be grateful though that in the midst of so much pain and uncertainty that I know is felt globally, God really did take care of the details. I have medical insurance and haven't had to pay anything this whole time (ok, $1 for each refill of drugs).  I didn't work for a long time and was miraculously provided for. When I reached my breaking point I posted on the COVID survivors group on Facebook and finally found camaraderie with over 60 people who were struggling with arthritis as a result of this virus. Though I was unable to get into the free COVID clinic through Mount Sinai, my boyfriend did and now I am reaping the benefits of the programs they've recommended for him (including breathing programs backed by real science). I started therapy.  I've learned so much about caring for myself and advocating for myself, which is something I really needed to learn.

One year is a long time. My doctor told me she thought I'd be fully recovered in a year. Did she mean a year from July? Doctors aren't supposed to make promises like that because of people like me.

I wish I had taken a meticulous physical diary tracking my symptoms each day. I desire this mainly because all the days blur together now and I wonder what it actually feels like to be well.  There was a long time where I believed what others had to say about myself and that maybe I was making this up or maybe it wasn't COVID maybe it was depression or something else. I'm still learning to not bring it up because people just do not get it.  I don't want to wear a badge of pride about being sick either. I don't want pity. I'm not using it to get any advantages.  I just want to be well.

How do I hope? How do I get out of bed each morning? I shared in a previous post that it's literally one day at a time.  Some days are harder than others. But as a human beings it's our glory to hope in things.  Even after so much despair, we just can't help hoping. It's in our nature. And so I hope in my new exercises I'm doing. I hope in my new diet. I hope in time healing. I hope in the vaccine healing.

But even if none of these things change anything about my physical condition, I've spent a year like this so I know it is possible to go on. I know it's possible to hope in something more than just how I am physically feeling. I now have a new job, one that is perfectly tailored to my physical condition (I haven't spoken at all about brain fog or fatigue really and how they effect my mental capacity but I hear I don't have it as bad as others so for that I can still be hopeful). 

So here I am back to the original thought: starting a new job on the day I became symptomatic means something. I'm extremely detail oriented and I've found that the God of the universe is also and that he cares about me and every detail of my life.  So why wouldn't I believe that this day was fashioned for me?  I choose to believe it means hope. I choose to believe it means new beginnings.

Letter to the Church

I’ve had this message brewing in my heart for a while as I scroll through posts on the internet. I have been deeply humbled as I hear in my spirit the words, “I’m not like that man!” 

 Where are these words coming from? Luke 18:11 actually. 

 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

There’s a fine line between holding others accountable and acting out of our own self-righteousness. I see it on both sides of the political aisle. “Those people are like that. I am not like that.” We are deeply divided within our country, but we do not realize how deeply divided we are in ourselves. 

 The problem I believe is how we lack self-awareness. Jesus told this parable of two people who were “confident in their own righteousness.” He contrasted two different prayers: one from a religious elder like his audience and one from a tax collector (the lowest of the low in terms of popular opinion, basically a criminal in today’s world). His question was “who was justified before God?” He answered his own question. It was not the man who thought he had it together. It was the man who knew he didn’t and repented. 

 Lack of self-awareness is a sickness that has infected the church. Based on the rampant rise of escapism through alcohol, drugs, Netflix, sex, etcetera, we are not practicing being self-aware. One of Jon Foreman’s songs has been ringing in my ears lately: “She’s got a pretty face with the wedded lace but I’m still waking up with myself.” If we see anything lacking in ourselves, instead of admitting it, we are AVOIDING it. We go to church on Sunday and then come home unable to connect what we are hearing to our daily lives. 

 The remedy I propose for this great malady in the church is the spiritual practice of repentance. David recognized that even at his best he was unaware of parts of himself. Therefore he prayed to God, “Search me and know me. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:22-23). This should be our starting place. Next, comes the acting of saying, “have mercy on me!” as the tax collector did. Finally, walking out the change that we need to see. 

 I call repentance a spiritual practice, because it’s actually something we should be practicing daily. I often thought of repentance as only linked to that powerful spiritual conviction I felt in services to run to the front of the church and fall on my face and cry realizing how I had sinned against my God. But the more time I spend researching healthier ways to do things the more I realize that our spirituality cannot simply be enacted in times of spiritual “unction.” They must be daily disciplines that we devote ourselves to even when we don’t feel like it. 

 I am not saying lose your heart and feeling when you approach your spirituality. Those things are also vital. My experience of the presence and prompting of God is very visceral so I would never discount that, especially since we see how God moves in that way all over Scripture (take David dancing with the ark of the covenant for example). However, I would posit that the reason we find ourselves overwhelmed with this “conviction” in these moments is that we weren’t listening to the gentle, prompting to walk in wholeness daily. 

 Often we don’t even know how to bring all of ourselves daily to God. We learned from a young age to bury parts of ourselves down deep so that even we can’t comprehend those parts anymore. I think Inside Out is a great illustration of this. Happiness keeps trying to shove sadness away not realizing how deeply sadness is needed for Riley’s full emotional health. Nothing works until sadness is fully allowed to be at the helm. Suddenly Riley is able to be connected to her full emotional self when she is allowed to express her sadness. For a child in a Pixar movie, the fix is quite simple. For an adult, this task of discovering those buried parts of ourselves will take time and energy. 

 I felt that this year keenly as I experienced deep grief over my health. I have never been this sick for this long: unable to exercise, unable to play guitar, my daily life totally interrupted (as I write both my arms ache). Many of my encounters with the church left me deeply disheartened. Grief seemed to be frowned upon. Only declarations of faith over my health were acceptable. Some even went as far as accusing me of having the wrong attitude when I simply told them, “I am managing.” This wasn’t the Jesus that I knew who came to Mary when she lost her brother and simply wept. Apparently, to some, expressing grief amounts to a lack of belief in God’s healing power. Yet I needed to grieve a year of declining health with no answers. It was deeply disappointing. I did not, as some would say, “Come into agreement with a spirit of infirmity.” 

 The real infirmity is people who get up and preach repentance but their life of finger pointing speaks very little of real repentance. I have been weeping and racking my brain for a long time now trying to understand the incomprehensible actions of even those closest to me. Paul compared a loveless life as a “clanging symbol.” It’s loud. But it amounts to nothing. The church is in grave danger of becoming this empty, shallow tomb. Thank God he is in the business of raising things out of tombs! But we have to come out willingly. Remember, Jesus didn’t grab Lazarus. He called to him and Lazarus walked out. Jesus is calling to the church right now to repent. The question is, will she listen?