How open are you? With your spouse or significant other? With your kids? Your boss? Your parents? On a blog?
It’s an interesting question. How authentic, how personal do you get? Obviously these questions arise particularly on journal type blogs like mine, which by their very nature are intimate, and yet distant. Even though I’m trying to be anonymous-y to the search engines (at least you’d have to know me or look for me), I remain committed to the idea that true communication happens only when we are willing to be vulnerable. I’ve been around long enough to know that there is truly no privacy in cyberspace, and precious little IRL. It’s all out there, so you better be OK with who you are. Or at least I used to think so.
Then I went to “group” for three months. “Group” is the euphemism we used at the psychiatric hospital for the severe mood disorders program. “I’m going to group,” I’d say and head out the door in the morning. Sounded a lot better than “I’m going to brain treatment” or “Behavioral Health Care”. Group was really very interesting. There was a wide range of ages, races, men and women, from body-pierced punk 19 year olds to an elderly Indian gentleman doctor, with plenty of housewives, students, a barista or two, a sheriff, and me, the pastor. We were black and white, hispanic and asian. It wasn’t a group of people who would ever meet socially in real life, and yet there was a closeness there that is hard to describe. We all had been through it. Depression, or bi-polar, anxiety disorders, all severe enough that normal life had become untenable, at least for a while.
I learned a lot about behavioural-cognitive theory, and talked some, and listened more. We talked about our need to find places to express how we were feeling, and I was surprised at the number of people who said that they didn’t even have one person they could honestly talk to. Not a single person in their life that they trusted that completely. We had a long discussion about setting boundaries of who was safe, and who was not, to tell our stories. I just recently started seeing a new therapist, and she’s one of the good ones. I just got that vibe… she’s real. She get’s it. But isn’t always easy to tell, and being let down happens. How do you know when someone is safe to share with? Can be trusted? Will be loving even if they disagree or disapprove or are disappointed by you?
I’ve been so blessed in having Flash with me through this all. It has meant a lot to have my best friend and husband willing to walk this precarious path with me. And on days like today, when I’m struggling to cope with normal routines through waves of panic attacks, it means a lot to have him by my side.
I’ve always been somewhat of an over-sharer. If you’ve ever heard me preach, you know that applying the scripture to my everyday life is the lens through which I see God. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I let it all out and trust that others will be honest and upfront with me in return. Now that I’m middle-aged, I no longer expect that everyone will respond. Some people simply find it frightening, to hear truth spoken by anyone. To put aside unnecessary pleasantries for depth. But I can say that for the most part the people I truly care about are willing to try authenticity.
But now, like never before, I’m wounded. And so, carefully, carefully, I’m trusting. I had a wonderful lunch this morning with a dear colleague and gave her the whole story of the past two years of stress that brought me to the brink, far more than I will post publically. I really want to focus here on the future, how I’m changing, what I’m becoming. I’m carefully selecting how I post links to my blog on Facebook (not everyone sees them) and who I go into more detail with. If you are one of those who is safe, who gets it, please come back. Listen. Respond. If you aren’t, then… hey, look, squirrel! Over there! Now delete that link…
The technology is enticing. There is possibility here. Be authentic. Speak your truth, but never have to see the face look back in disappointment or anger. I finally get the whole blog thing. I need it. On days like today.
I’m *VERY* glad to hear that only certain folks are getting the link off of Facebook to this blog. I’m also humbled and proud to be one of the people you trust to read it. 🙂
I’m reading, I’m listening.
Thank you for that. It does mean a lot to me to know that I do have such good friends… I was amazed at the amount of social isolation I encountered in group.
As for the other, I am trying to be circumspect. My facebook posts have always been divided into categories, and I select which groups get which posts… But I know that probably some folks I’d rather not have here will find the link, or whatever. But I really am willing to stand by and stand up for anything I say online. You know… you can’t really be anonymous. Maybe that’s a good thing, pushing us to become a society without masks. Though sometimes people wear theirs for a reason….
Don’t drive that space ship too fast. 😉
This resonates with me. I have realized that much of my depression over the past two years is directly related to a feeling that I couldn’t trust people close to me to understand and a desire to protect them from disappointment. For me, it would have been better if I had been honest with my feelings since I, by my silence and fakery, was living as if they had already betrayed me.
I’m not by nature an open person, but I am working on it…some. At least I am trying to trust the people who are trustworthy.
I’m not sure what it is that make so many of us so afraid to reveal who we really are. The truth is, everyone else is just as imperfect. I hope you can find some community for yourself–people that you can depend on and share openly. If you work on it, it will happen.
Dear, wonderful woman… I am so sorry that you are suffering through this!
I am and will always be a slacker about responding, but I have been reading along since you started this blog. I am very moved by a lot of what you are going through – both the sad of the current state of your universe, but also the excitement of where your universe might be heading now…
I want to give you some love and encouragement through the crappy days: I have always considered you one of the most self-confident and ‘self-comfortable’ people I have ever known. While you may have been ‘knocked over’, and it might take a little time to stand back up, there is inside of you a place of such stability that allows others to find safe harbor. You were always the one to whom others turned when we were younger, and clearly you used that heavily in your adult life – it is not gone. Just on vacation.
And on the craptastic days, when there is no smile to be found, go to the Ataniel website and get a few giggles from our youth. Also, I am still making yarn (and I have gotten pretty good at it)! While I sent you yarn to distract your mind and hands while waiting on Flash to get better, you should have yarn to distract your mind and hands while YOU get better… what colors would you like this time? 🙂
Your yarn is so awesome! I knit two hats–one for me and one for Vivian R. They not only look cute, they still smell vaguely of kool-aid. I’ll send you a pic sometime. I think they’ll be getting a lot more wear when we are back in the land of seasons. You choose the colors, but don’t send anything until after we move. Chaos reigns in the house right now.
As I was reading your blog this morning I just couldn’t stop crying. That’s not a bad thing — after my own bout with depression and my current pharmaceutical help, I sometimes find it hard to cry even when I really want to. Some time ago Flash wrote in his blog about wanting to be Awesome. I questioned that goal, given my own experience that being thought of as Awesome can be isolating and stressful. There’s so much work that goes into being the person you think people expect you to be that it leaves you with no idea of who you really are. Or worse, you become convinced that if anyone ever saw you for who you really are they might be horribly disappointed.
I am glad you have found ways to share who you are, to be who you are, even if you aren’t completely sure who that is yet. I’m right there with you: people around me could not understand why I walked away from my job as a university professor to become a classroom teacher (and now an unemployed one at that!). All I could tell them was that I had spent my life doing what I thought I should even though it didn’t satisfy me, and I just couldn’t do it any more. The look of disappointment in the eyes of people I thought cared about me — the real me, not the one they had invented — was crushing. Many of them tried to assimilate this change into their view of me by saying what a good daughter I was to “put my life on hold” to take care of parents in the last years of their life. I never saw it as an interruption; it was my life.
I admire you and Flash so much. Homeschooling your children, taking off on a new adventure and prioritizing what matters most in life; you are my heroes (with no accompanying expectation of perfection, I assure you). Thank you for sharing your struggle, and for letting us see the real you. And most of all, thanks for the good cry.
Thank you so much for the kind words. I was crying by the end of your story, as well. I thik there are so many people who spend their lives doing what they “should”, only to realize that they miss out on so much. To be disappointed by you when you are finding your joy, that is thier loss. I think it’s wonderful! Caregiving as a teacher or as the caregiver for elderly parents are both beautiful callings.
RevMommy, your words touched me deeply, and I, too, felt (and do feel) honored by your trust. My husband and I have been thinking about and praying for you and your family as you deal with what has been given to you and as you move forward in your lives. Having undergone certain experiences as a couple and, later, a family, and now having physically uprooted said family clear across the country for a new job, we empathize with you greatly.
I have been thinking of you, as well. I know that you must be in the midst of a state of flux yourselves. Keep us posted about how the big transition is going… Can you adapt? Give us hope!
I feel honored that you trust me enough to share your story with me. I’ll be interested in hearing how your journey goes and praying for all the best.
Thank you! It was very helpful to me to know that there are colleagues that understand. There is so much “hail-fellow-well-met” cheerfulness at clergy gatherings, I personally often found it difficult to talk about my very real struggles. I appreciate your listening ear and shoulder to cry on.