Fighting The Machine

Hello, friends! Thanks a million for stopping by again. I found these musings I wrote not quite a year ago. Reading over them, I see again how far I've come in the last few months, and I am grateful:

On a visit with my parents recently, it hit me with a mixture of astonishment and disappointment how much this disorder has changed me. I have become inflexible, easily thrown off by the unfamiliar; whereas change and newness used to thrill me. I miss my old self--my parents’ daughter. They say my lily reminds them of me: her exuberance for adventure, her joy in the out-of-doors, the way she loves to play in the mud! None of those parts of myself have survived the illness.

I’ve become stiff and proper, even stern--a perfect old matron. I, who Pan-like swore never to grow up. I, who feel underneath it all not a day over 16, but trapped, not so much in an older body but an old old mind--a mind knowing too much of fear, and not enough, snagged on its gears and circuits of anxiety and responsibility: circuits that never end or slow down.

Learning new pathways, ways to get off or short-circuit the typical thought patterns, is a slow and awkward re-wiring. The fear-gears on the other hand snapped so easily into place, as if pre-fitted to my brain. Or was it my brain that was pre-fitted to them? What tripped the wire for the waiting blazes of terror? What were the triggers, where are the buttons, and how can I prevent them from being pressed?

Circuits, gears, levers, buttons; machinery--it’s a cold, ugly metaphor for the human brain. But sometimes I do feel so cold. Frozen, paralyzed by the overwhelm of decision-making.

It doesn’t seem fair. Of course it isn’t, to be so prone to these vicious cycles of worry, this clogged-gear paralysis, but “it is what it is” as my psychologist says. The reality I must learn to live within. I pray for the grace to learn well. Yes, grace. God’s grace--more than sufficient to compensate for any “unfairness”. Ah! The grace of God’s unfairness! My only hope after all: that God would not treat this sinner fairly.

The Power of Story

Whatever I may think of my own talents as a writer, I am a storyteller and so are you. And the stories we tell have incredible power over us. I’m thinking specifically of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, inside our heads. The importance we ascribe to the various parts of these stories can change the direction of the rest of our life stories.

Selective Story-Telling:

As an example, consider the story I told about the day I drank the orange juice and made a terrible vow (link here). I did not include (and I neglected to include every time I told it to myself, which I did hundreds of times) that earlier that day I’d dined at a restaurant and avoided the pretty little complimentary appies with deli meats, because I was pregnant. At this high-class restaurant in a tourist resort, I had insisted on bottled water, for the sake of the baby. That morning, I had washed my fruit in a bleach solution, then thoroughly rinsed it, because that was ‘best practice’ for this part of the world. I had gone for a run on the beach with my best friend, and stifled my competitive spirit to let her go on without me at the 5-K mark, because I didn’t want to overdo it for the sake of the baby. Every night that visit, my friend and I had sung “Jesus Loves Me” to my baby, at my request, because I had read that she had recently developed tiny ear buds. I left out those parts of the story, every single time.

Over and over I told myself stories of my own incompetence, stupidity and negligence. I told myself stories in which I could never be forgiven. I told myself dark stories with terrible endings that ought to serve as lessons to much better mothers.

I told myself such stories until I no longer trusted myself. What reputation could possibly survive such a harshly selective story-teller? I stopped believing my memory and even my spatial perception.

A New Narrator

It took a while, but I have changed the way I tell myself stories. My new stories are about the same person and the same events, but I have fired my old narrator! My new inner-narrator is much kinder; she tells me stories about a “good enough” mom who is competent in most situations, and knows how and when to ask for help. Her memory, intellect and intuition are reliable, and have never yet led her too far wrong. She makes mistakes, and falls, and is strong enough to get back up again. She lives by grace and serves as an example for others who fall and fear the endings of their own dark stories.

My new narrator compares motherhood to astrophysics or rocket science, and has me saying it with pride: “I’m a mom! It’s no big deal. I’m really good at it.”

This new narrator tells and re-tells the moments of joy and peace and victory, the times when lily and I enjoy each other, the snuggles and kisses and “I love you’s” and games on the floor and laughing runs in the fields. This narrator remembers best the times lily’s accomplishments blow my mind and I allow myself to admit that I had a part in that. And the times lily's defiance and disobedience blow my mind but I keep my temper and deal with the situation in a constructive, thoughtful way.

My narrator insists that, despite all kinds of failings and moments of seemingly total disaster, I am a good enough mom, and that is great.

So what stories are you telling yourself? What are you leaving out? Is it time to start learning to be a kinder narrator?

Limp--a poem, by J

I've been working up the courage to try out a poem on my readers. So, here we go!

Limp

When you are in my kitchen,
Love,

Use the black and white dishrag;

The thin one, the one that’s

Greying to threadbare places

That I have squeezed and rung and twisted

‘Til it wept gushings of warm suds

And all my panic ran down

The grating scruff of your cheeks.

Use it because I have rung pieces of myself

Into the very fabric.

Use it because the grime

Runs quick through those bare places

And with it the guilt

And the fear.

It must run quick because

I am eager to please, and

You are in a hurry, and

Efficiency is essential.

I am glad my favorite dishcloth

Has not outlived its usefulness.