#selfcare

I just got back from the gym where I met with a personal trainer. We focused on strength training and I felt sooo good. I got out my Mood Meter app on my phone for the first time in years and rated myself somewhere between happy and hopeful. Maybe strength building cures the blues and anxiety. Maybe I am carrying over the buzz from seeing "A Very Die Hard Christmas" last night with my friend Cara. Maybe it was the great phone call with the Boy today. I wouldn't say he was euphoric--that is not the goal. Instead, he was introspective and reflective. He was saying he has been bored lately. Instead of it being a complaint, it was more of an observation, like "That's interesting. Why is that and what am I going to do about it?"

When the Boy was in Wilderness Therapy, the staff at his program tried to get the parents to focus on self care. This was hard for me. I was used to taking care of other people and not so much myself. This self-abnegation came in different forms, from not spending much money on myself to putting my family's needs first. If there was a play for me to see or take care of the kids while Jack worked, then I would take care of the kids. Part of this is just being a parent. I remember when I knew I was ready to be a parent -- when I had more to give than I needed to take. Unfortunately, I interpreted that to mean give almost everything to others and save little for myself.

Yeah, I needed some balance.

I am trying to take advantage of my time as an early and unexpected empty-nester to focus on taking care of myself. I was talking to Cara about my year of physical therapy after I tore my ACL. At the end of 2015, I had just lost a brutal school board election and I had no job. My dad once told me one of the secrets to happiness is to have something to look forward to, whether a vacation or dinner with friends. After the election, I didn't have much to look forward to, not necessarily in a bad way. I was going to have to regroup and figure out a new plan. Then, I got hurt and couldn't walk properly for about seven months. I was never in pain, but physical therapy was uncomfortable. Why wasn't I completely depressed? How did I get out of bed in the morning? Theoretically, I should have been miserable, but I wasn't. Why?

Was it the daily exercise? Was it the delightful company of my physical therapist, Evan? Was it because I was almost writing every day? Was it because I was listening to music every day, reading lots of book? Watching cool stuff on Netflix?

Recently, I had a realization: maybe I wasn't depressed because that was the Year of Self Care. My goal, focus and purpose was clear: I had to heal and recover. I had no choice. Not walking was not an option.

It wasn't all rosy, but there were some upsides. I gained about twenty pounds, but I still was in decent shape. My left knee was injured but in the process of physical therapy, my tetchy right knee got better, too.

My family kicked in and helped around the house more. I wasn't the only one doing laundry, cooking or cleaning. For several months, I couldn't empty the dishwasher. Was I happy because I got out of housework? Or was in because they all had to chip in and take care of me for a change?

I am looking back at my ACL recovery year with the lens of self-care, and hoping to apply it to this year, too. The Boy is gone. He reminds us of the challenges of being in a therapeutic environment. Part of his being gone isn't just that he needs to be in a place to heal, but the rest of the family needs to heal, too. Mental illness is a family system issue, just like alcoholism or workaholism. Everyone plays a part in the dynamic, and we all need to adjust if we are going to get better.

Sixty Percent, Drama Queens, Sister Mamas & Because it is Hard

Last week when I got back from Montana, I went to lunch with my friend who has anxiety and depression. Sometimes he is quiet, sometimes not. Last week, he was talkative.

We went to lunch on Monday, and I was still recovering emotionally from seeing the Boy and physically from the drive and lack of sleep. I still struggle with how to be happy while I am coping with the Boy's depression and anxiety. Watching the Boy struggle with all of his emotional challenges is heartbreaking. He is making progress, but that progress means uncovering a lot of challenging thoughts. I was still pretty raw from the trip when we were at lunch.

My friend's anxiety has had physical ramifications. He used to be very athletic. Now, not so much.

"I am sixty percent of where I used to be," he said. "I could be sad about the forty percent that I lost, or I could be happy where I am at. What would be the point of looking back at where I was?"

It took me several days to absorb these thoughts. Part of that time I was recovering from seeing the Boy. Still, my friend is right. I need to find a way to be happy in spite of these challenges.

Ironically, one thing that has made it possible to even think about being happy is digging into my sorrow. My path to happiness hasn't been to go around the Boy's problems, but to go through. Before I acknowledged how much I was worried about the Boy committing suicide and checking out from life, I was a Drama Queen inside my own head and to my closest friends. I'd spin and spin about tangentially related issues. When I spoke about my fears in the group therapy session, the drama almost came to a complete stop. Without the constant mental distractions, it is much easier to think about being happy.

When my son was at Wilderness therapy, I met other parents in the program at the program's family wellness weekend. There, I met many sane and normal people who had kids with major challenges. Maybe some of these parents were a little on edge or crazy or sad or whatever (myself included) because they had a kid who went off the rails who was then put in the middle of the southwestern United States to sleep on the ground under a tarp for three months.

Since the parents weekend, I've kept in touch with three other moms. One of the moms calls us Sister Mamas. As I wrote before, I bought them each a journal.

Here is the letter I included with the journal.

Dear Sister Mamas,

Last week, I was driving back from Montana after visiting the Boy when I stopped in a gift shop in St. Regis. It was a long and exhausting visit where I got to witness the Boy having a panic attack and then watch him for the first time articulate what he was feeling. He was so open with his emotions which was great but it was difficult to hear all of the fear and shame he was holding. I had no idea what to do. I felt glad he was in boarding school because his sadness was so deep and his anxiety so strong. There was no way I have the skill set to take care of him.

When I walked into the gift shop, I saw this journal that said on the cover “I think I’ll just be happy today.” I thought what a load of crap. There is no way that can ever be me with all that I have gone through, am going through and will go through. The book is full of platitudes that I would have liked in middle school. Ugh.

And then I thought holy cow how did I become so cynical? Maybe I could try to be happy in spite all of this. Maybe the platitudes apply. Maybe I need a flowery journal with a cute little bird on the cover. Maybe I need a dose of that blind and sunny optimism I had in 7^thgrade that I found in a small town in Montana. Maybe I need to find some hope and happiness so my son can find hope and happiness for himself.

Then I was grateful for Montana—the entire state--that the houses residential treatment programs for kids with issues. I was glad for the kind (and super intense) parents at the boarding school. I was grateful for the self-aware kids at the Boy’s school. And of course, I am grateful for all of you and sharing the experience of wilderness.

Instead of one journal, I bought four. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, I am asking you to be happy, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. 

·     Life doesn’t need to be perfect to be wonderful.

·     You are amazing. Remember that.

·     Every journey begins with a single step.

·     Some days you have to create your own sunshine.

·     Mistakes are proof that you are trying.

·     Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

All of this is easy to think when life is going well, but harder to believe when life is dark and seems impossible.

Thank you so much for all of your inspiration, vulnerability and honesty.

Lauren

The Black Dog and the Bubble

I mentioned in a previous post that I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with depression. I have other friends who have depression but I met them after they were diagnosed and already into treatment. For a variety of reasons, this friend can't take medication for her depression. She has to rely on psychotherapy and maintaining a healthy lifestyle to minimize her symptoms. She is discovering the before and after of her diagnosis. What used to be perceived as tiredness and lethargy she now recognizes as depression.

I have another friend with type I diabetes. This friend can prick her finger and get a quantitive read on her blood sugar levels. She then has to figure out what to do next to adjust so her blood levels return to normal. People with depression don't have something that concrete to tell them something is off or amiss. Plus, your mind thinks what it thinks, and it often thinks it is find, even when it is not.

I remember when I was consulting, there was an expression "You can't manage what you can't measure." There was a strong emphasis on trying to quantify things that might not necessarily be quantifiable. How can we quantify a mood like depression? I wish it were easy to measure so then it more easily be managed.

My son's elementary and middle school used to use the Mood Meter created at Yale to help kids label their emotions, but I am not sure how it can capture fuzzier emotions, like "I want to sit on the coach and watch YouTube videos for hours instead of going outside" or "I don't really have any feelings right now. Everything is gray."

I wish there was a depression simulator, where you could go into it for fifteen minutes or so and experience depression. Not that I really want to go there, but I want to know what it is like inside her head so I can be a better friend and support her. Depression are migraine headaches are the two illnesses I fear the most. I don't want to take a drug to give me the feeling of depression; I would fear the drug might be permanent, and that would suck. J. K. Rowling gives a great description of depression with the Dementors in the Harry Potter series.

And then I wonder how much of the Black Dog has visited me, and perhaps I have been unaware of it. I wonder if Jack has a mild case of it, too. Maybe both of us live on the bubble, and have managed to keep it at bay with exercise, socialization and getting good sleep. Maybe the Black Dog would have a more permanent part in our lives, but so far we have managed it.

When I was a kid, I used to ride my bike everyday after school except for days when I had extra-curricular activities, like Drill Team. I needed a full night's sleep to feel normal. Now I also need a fistful of vitamins to feel perky: cod liver oil, folic acid, and Vitamin D and B, plus magnesium to ward off Alzheimer's. Jack runs or rides his bike to work everyday. When he goes three or four days without exercise, he is grumpy and short-tempered.

"I need to go for a run," he said the other night after dinner. Yes you do, I thought. I no longer think of exercise as a luxury. My campaign manager for when I ran for School Board would occasionally ask for a few hours off to lift weighs.

"No problem," I told him. If he needed to exercise to feel normal, I needed him to exercise.

I was recently talking to a group of moms and it came up that almost all of them were on anti-depressants. I was one of the only ones in the group not to need them. (Yet.) After my ACL tear and surgery, I needed to exercise everyday for forty-five minutes to build strength in my legs. What should have been a perfect excuse to sit on my butt and feel sorry for myself ended up being not that bad. I was almost surprised that I wasn't more miserable that I was. Part of me I wanted to be miserable so I could figure out what to do next with my life. I couldn't possibly be happy or content when I was in such a sorry state.

But I kind of was content. I wasn't euphoric or ecstatic, but I wasn't as miserable or painfully bored as I thought I'd be. I somehow managed to keep off the bubble. I am a firm believer of listening to your body and mind "Pain is your body's way of staying 'Stop!'" is one of my favorite expressions as it applies to so much more that physical pain. Boredom serves a purpose: it forces me to find something new and meaningful to do. Misery tells me I need to change. I look at these feelings as a gift telling me to move, not something I need to dread.

I can say that but then I still have a healthy fear of the Black Dog approaching as I age. I don't want to live where I have to be so diligent to keep my sanity. My dad manages his type II diabetes with diet and exercise, and as long as that works for him, he isn't on medication. I plan to do the same to keep my mood in place.

What if I get injured again or become ill and can't exercise? My mom had a bad case of depression after my brother and I were both out of the house. This time also coincided with menopause. Is this something I have to look forward to? Will depression be an accessory that comes with the change of life? I pray not. I read somewhere the estrogen protects women's brains from mental illnesses like schizophrenia. Some women are sane until they hit menopause, and then they become certifiable. If this happens to me, I will hopefully gracefully submit to medication, therapy, and whatever else I might need to keep my mind.

Mental Illness, Movies and Bad Guys

[SPOILER ALERT in this post for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them]

I don't know if there is such a thing as Mental Illness Kindness Day, but there ought to be.

One of my favorite people and good friend was recently diagnosed with depression and anxiety. It is taking me a while to figure out what this means. My mother had depression and was on medication for years. Hers didn't kick in until after I was living on my own in a different state, so I didn't see to the day-to-day impacted on her. My father tells me stories of how she would cry for days.

Yesterday, I went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with this friend and our kids. After the movie, this friend said she didn't like it: "The bad guy was a psycho bent on destroying the world." This hit her close to the heart.

Having just been diagnosed with a mental illness and starting treatment, she struggles with the loneliness of the disease and understanding how her body impacts her mood in such a way that makes her unmotivated to leave the house. She is functional in some respects of her life because she has to be, but in others, she falls. She tells me of her dark thoughts and wishes them away. "When I get bored, I think. When I think, I get depressed." I can't imagine what it would be like not to want to be inside your own head, wanting to escape your own mind.

In some sense, the answer could be to be distracted to the point of not thinking, but then she introduced a new word to my vocabulary: maladaptive. Maladaptive means using a coping mechanism that doesn't improve mental health, like drinking or giving in to other addictions like video games. Adaptive strategies are exercise, being around friends, exploring nature and getting enough sleep.

Her issue is that bad guys in movies are often disturbed or crazy. I suppose a bad guy can't simply be sane because then perhaps he wouldn't be a bad guy because theoretically he or she would know better than to commit evil acts. That being said, many if not most people with mental illnesses know the difference between right and wrong, likely at the same rate sane people know right from wrong. Some folks with mental illness have a very heightened sense of right and wrong -- they might be more sensitive to injustice than a typical person. My daughter pointed out that Putin is sane and Lincoln was crazy. Does that make having a mental illness a good thing? If you only use those two as an example, I suppose so, but life isn't so simple.

I am asking Hollywood this: can we have more empathetic depictions of people with mental illnesses? Can we have some heroes who suffer from bipolar disorder, or OCD? I googled famous people with depression and it was twelve pages long. How about showing a biopic of Lincoln that includes his depression?