Ha'azina Tefilati

True healing

2011-06-29T14:37:00.003-05:00

I am well. Not all well, but really well. I am still seeing my counselor. I have grieved my mother's death and dealt with much of the fallout.

I thought my brother and I were getting closer after my mother's death, but when I made an off-hand reference to one of several times my mother admitted to her part in the abuse when I was growing up, he verbally attacked me in public. When one of my very good friends stood up for me, he attacked her as well.

I struggled for months with what to do. I tried to reconcile, but I did not go to the lengths I went to with my mother--lengths that left me far more hurt than before my attempts. He clearly wanted to blame me, not reconcile. I was finally able to chalk it up to his own grief and let it go.

With a great deal of help and support, and with--I strongly believe--no small amount of spiritual intervention (I am one of those people who believes G-d is at work in the world, though maybe not in ways we'd expect, or even hope), I have a sense of who I really am, an idea of maybe who G-d wants me to be.

My counselor offered this in her interpretation of kibud av v'em--honor your father and mother: "Parenting, at its root, means helping your child become the best person s/he can be. So the best way to honor your parents is to be true to yourself, and become the person you were meant to be, the person G-d created you to be." I needed to hear that, right then. It finally clicked.

I feel like I am finally accepting who I am--who I really am--even with my flaws, my mistakes, the possibility that severe anxiety and/or depression may once again visit. And I am okay. Yes, I can do better; there's always a place for introspection, evaluation, and improvement. But my core, my essence, my Yiddishe neshama, is accepted and loved, and I am worth loving and worth acceptance. I don't have to disappear from my makom kavua because someone else is more worthy than I am. I can sit in my fixed place (where I have sat for sixteen years now) and invite others to sit with me.

This is all a huge change in perception for me. And for the last 17 days (it's that new) it has stuck. I pray it sticks forever.

In fact I have felt so accepting of myself that I have toyed with the idea of dashing my anonymity (whatever of it I have left) and coming out, so to speak. I didn't when I set up this blog because I feared what others would think, that I would lose my credibility, my job, my friends, if I owned up to what was really going on inside of me: the depression, the anxiety, the fear, the hurt, the wounded child.

Now, I don't worry so much about what others think of me because my opinion of myself is the one I have to live with (did I just say that out loud?). And for the past several decades, it's been a pretty negative one. Perhaps because it is a more positive opinion now, I am going through a sort of honeymoon period. For that reason, I will give the idea of "coming out" some time. There still may be things I don't want to admit publicly, under any name other than Rivka.

Any advice?

"Sure could use / a little good news today"

2010-07-08T22:23:00.003-05:00

I am sick today, but I'm not going to complain because I've been pretty healthy (physically, anyway) for a while now. I did, however, receive bad news. I found out that the father of one of my children's classmates died unexpectedly last weekend. He was only a few years older than I am.

I hear the news and immediately whisper the bracha "Baruch dayan emet." And then all I can think of is how this woman I've known for several years now has just lost her husband and has two young children to care for. It is, in a way, normal to lose one's parents. Better that one should bury one's parents than bury one's child. But losing a life partner...it pains and frightens me all at once.

I could not speak on the phone so my husband called the family to offer his condolences, child care, meals. I am still in shock. I spoke to this man less than a month ago. He was too young to die now!

This news brings up not-yet-healed grief of my own. I want so much to reach out to this woman and her children and at the same time I am so anxious. I fear that I will become overwhelmed by our shared grief and I will lose myself. I fear that my anxiety and depression will prevent me from connecting. I fear that I cannot step outside myself enough to be helpful to her.

I sent an email to my rabbi asking for suggestions. He said that she will need support not just for the short term but also for the long term. I know he is right. I had a lot of support for a few weeks after my mother's death, and then it trickled away. Offers to check in with me in a month or go for a walk or get together for lunch disappeared. I know they meant well, but I really could have used some of that support a month or two or even six months after her death, and it was not there.

I hope that I can use that experience to create a different reality for this woman. My mother-in-law still mourns the loss of her husband, ten years later. My mother struggled with severe depression and suicidal thoughts after my father died. That is my only reference for losing one's spouse. I pray that she has a strong support system through her synagogue and that I can find the continued strength to be there for her as well.

Moving forward

2010-07-03T23:10:00.001-05:00

I'm sorry I have not written. I had no words. Everything was just numb.

My mother died on Mother's Day, 2009. I was with her for the last two weeks of her life, and it was an emotional roller coaster that can only exist in a troubled, volatile, sometimes violent relationship. While I tried to explain away much of what she said as being drug induced from the painkillers, the truth is that her criticisms and insults, even in the last two weeks of her life, were the same things she's been saying to me all my life. She just couldn't bring herself to accept me for who I am, even as she knew death was only days or hours away. My brother confirmed this, too.

I learned much about my mother by talking to him in the days and weeks and months after her death. Things I didn't know he knew. Things he observed but never brought up, to avoid rocking the boat in his very good relationship with her.

I talked quite a bit with a social worker who spent several months with my mom in hospice. She said I was a "lightning rod" in the family, and that my brother was the one who smoothed things over.

I think I am finally starting to get it that the reason I was never good enough in my mother's eyes has more to do with my mother than with me. But it is still so very hard to feel like I am worthy of love and acceptance.

It was just this past Mother's Day (2010) that I finally was able to really cry and let go of some of the grief and anger and guilt I've been holding for over a year. It was not even something I could bring up in therapy because it was too raw, too painful to fit into a 45-minute session and then put my public mask on and go back out into the world.

There is more.

My mom's live-in boyfriend was emotionally and verbally abusing her. I didn't get it when she would tell me about their fights because she was always the instigator with my dad and I am sorry to admit that I thought she played some part in her fights with her boyfriend. But then he started in on me when I was there with my mom for those last two weeks. The nicest thing he called me was a bully. He threatened me with physical harm. He told me I was not welcome in the house and to never come back. He told me that my mom didn't love me anymore and that the only reason she didn't object to my being there was because she was too weak. He verbally attacked the hospice nurses and threatened to call the police. My brother finally convinced him to say his goodbyes to my mom and go on vacation until it was all over.

I knew even as he was saying these horrible things that it was him, not me. But it brought back all of the horrible things my mom said repeatedly to me when I was growing up and I wondered again as I had years ago, what if there's some truth to it?

My mom's rages always ended with my being beaten. Hearing her boyfriend rage at me immediately took me back to the same place, and I truly feared for my life. I also feared for my mom's safety and it was a very weird situation to see my mom as the victim.

I confided in one of the social workers who was at the house when the boyfriend went into his worst rage against me and the hospice workers. He noticed I was wearing a Star of David and asked, You're Jewish? I said yes. He said, But your mom doesn't consider herself Jewish? I said no. He gave me two thumbs up and a grin and said, Rockin'! He was one bright spot in an otherwise abysmal day.

It has only been in the past month, maybe, that I am trying to move forward. I am trying to treat myself better, eat better, exercise with mindfulness. I am trying to clean up the mess in my house and my life so I can have the future I want, the future I think G-d wants for me. I am trying to open up and talk about the past a little more, so I can finally let it go.

I wondered recently why we are in the world. Some would say we are here to honor G-d, but that is too simple and too ambiguous for me. I believe G-d wants us to be happy. I believe G-d wants us to help each other. I believe G-d wants us to find the best in ourselves and each other and make the world a better place. I think that's what the mitzvot are about, and believing horrible things about myself is not on the list.

Mom update

2009-04-22T21:36:00.004-05:00

I am so sorry I disappeared like that. It was not intentional. Everything is just so overwhelming and I am trying to cope day to day but some things fell off the back burners behind the stove and I didn't find them until I was cleaning for Passover.

My mom is still alive, but her health is declining rapidly. I can't believe I left my last update the way I did. I thought I had written one more.

Here is the update to bring you all current. It is possible that from this information, some readers may think they know who I am, or may be sure of who I am. I guess I can't do much about that anymore. My "secret" of dealing with depression and anxiety now seems so small compared to losing a parent slowly and painfully from cancer. Just don't post anything publicly, please.

My mom saw Dr. Norton, the surgeon who specializes in pancreatic cancer, in early December. He looked at her scan and determined that the pancreatic tumor had fully encapsulated her vena cava, I think it was. He could not operate. With no surgery, the only option was chemo. But before she could start chemo, she had to be assigned to an oncologist at her primary clinic.

While all of this was going on, I met with my rabbi. He said he knew how this disease progressed, and I needed to get out there to see her one more time. And he said I needed to bring my children so they could have some happy memories of her too, and she could visit with them while she was still strong.

I was very anxious about how we were going to do that. We could not afford airfare or car rental or hotel rates. I did the only thing I could think of. I prayed. And almost out of the blue an idea came to me. I could drive. I calculated costs and it was doable. It would allow us to afford a hotel, and we wouldn't have to rent a car. But the children and I would have to go alone. My husband could not take time off work.

I pulled the children out of school and we drove across the country to spend two weeks with my mom. I am very glad we did. We had quality time with her and the children have lots of memories, both of the visit and the trip there and back. Once this idea came to me, I planned, packed, and we left within three days. I had so many things for the children to do on the drive and they used most of them. From a parenting perspective, it was very successful.

My mom had a biopsy in mid-January to determine whether the cancer had spread. The doctors biopsied tissue that was on her abdominal wall. We all hoped that was scar tissue from her hysterectomy when she had uterine cancer 2 1/2 years ago. It was not. It was metastasized cancer. The doctors determined it had spread to her liver, kidneys, and abdominal wall.

She started chemo late January and initially it did good things for her. She felt like she had more energy and was more upbeat. But it only lasted for two treatments, and after that it started wearing her out. She continued on, hoping it would do something. But her blood tests showed the cancer was spreading and multiplying and chemo wasn't stopping or even really slowing it.

Then she developed a blood clot in her leg and severe edema--swelling--in the same leg. When tested, they found one of her kidneys had failed. She was scheduled for a stent to try to jumpstart her kidney but then she had tachycardia and she had to be referred to a cardiologist to be cleared for the stent surgery.

She finally had the stent put in on February 12 and she continued with chemo. By Feb 18 she had to get a home helper in to assist with cooking and cleaning and laundry. On March 1, Mom qualified for Medicare, so now assistance that had previously not been covered was now available to her. She saw her oncologist who said that she could continue with chemo if she wanted, but it wasn't really beneficial. It was up to her. She decided to do one more round (three weeks).

On March 27, Mom turned 65. It was a bittersweet birthday for all of us. It was particularly hard for me not to be able to be there with her. Already December seems like it was long ago.

At the beginning of April, Mom went on home hospice. She has a hospital bed in her living room and a wheelchair and walker to help her get around. Her pain is generally manageable. She has little appetite and has lost half her body weight and is weak and easily tired.

April 10 marked five years since my dad died. April 12 (which was also Easter) was his yahrtzeit. April 19 marked nine years since my father-in-law died. It was a very difficult Passover, knowing that I am losing my mom and I am so far away and she is not just a phone call away, the way she was before she was sick. It is selfish I know, to want more time with her, to want her to be there for me, but I accept that it is also normal.

I used to call every other day but time after time she was too tired or crying too much or otherwise not up to talking to me. My counselor suggested I call twice a week, so that is what I'm doing now. I still only get to talk to her maybe once every two weeks. The rest of the time I leave voice mail or talk to her significant other, who has been a G-d send for all of us.

I talked to her on the 19th and she said, No matter what day I die, whether it's in weeks or months or years, I want you to remember the happy times. It's so important to remember the good times, not the date of death. She is right but it is easier said than done. It seems she knows the end is coming.

Every day I wonder if this is the day I get a phone call saying it is time to come say goodbye. I will fly out when it comes. A friend has volunteered their frequent flier miles.

I will try much harder to do better about updating. The hardest thing, actually, is that there are no words. I cannot seem to journal my way through this the way I journaled my way through my depression in 2007. The emotions are too deep, too raw. The best I can do now is report facts.

I really appreciate all of your support.

My mom: the scan, part II

2008-11-30T00:52:00.003-05:00

My mom sent me an email this evening and said that she looked up her CT scan results on her online patient account. She said it was all highly medical terms, but from what she read, she was pretty sure it said that the cancer had metastasized to her liver and abdominal wall.

Then she said she'd wait to hear the doctor interpret the test results when she sees him on Friday. But until then, she seems to think there is now no hope. And other than say that maybe that's not what the test results said, I'm not sure what I can do for her.

I am bouncing back and forth between being okay and trying to stay positive on the one hand, and suddenly feeling sad when I see or hear about other families sharing, especially when it comes to children and grandparents.

Thanksgiving was very nice but also hard. After dinner, the friends who hosted dinner were sharing photographs with (their) family that was there. I had my camera with me and had just taken photos at my children's school, and I suddenly felt so sad that I didn't have anyone there to share them with. I planned to upload the photos when I got home so my mom could see them, but I could not help but think that this would not last.

Since she sees the doctor on Friday and we don't know what he'll say (immediate surgery to get rid of all the nasty cancer?), we are waiting until his prognosis before we try to find a way to get together.

My mom: the specialist and the scan

2008-11-27T01:10:00.003-05:00

Mom had her more detailed scan today. She doesn't know much more than she did before. This CT scan focused entirely on her pancreas so that the specialist will be able to see exactly what is going on and what exactly he can do about it.

I am feeling much more relaxed, though, now that I know who this specialist is. His name is Dr. Jeffrey Norton, and he's the Division Chief of Surgical Oncology at Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto, CA (the same place Patrick Swayze is getting treatment).

In fact, I just found out tonight that Dr. Norton was reportedly the surgeon who removed the pancreatic tumor from Steve Jobs (of Apple fame) in 2004. Dr. Norton is one of the foremost experts in the field of pancreatic cancer. Fun fact along the "six degrees" line of thinking: a medical procedure invented by Dr. Norton to treat a rare pancreatic disease was featured in the TV show "House."

So I feel she is really going to be in good hands. She has an appointment to see him on Friday, December 5th.

Tonight she was tired but largely in good spirits. And I was glad to hear her say that she's kind of in information overload and intentionally taking a break from this when she needs to, and doing things that focus her attention elsewhere.

I am doing okay. Still going through periods of shock and denial and feeling like this is all surreal, like I'll call her in a few days and discover this was all a nightmare and she's fine. In the meantime, she's going to her brother's for Thanksgiving and I am going to work hard at focusing on what I do have in my life (including my mom right now).

Happy Thanksgiving.

My mom

2008-11-25T18:02:00.010-05:00

I have not written in a long time, and for that I apologize. I have been dealing with my feelings in therapy and talking with friends who live nearby. For some reason, it has been hard to write about it, but I don't feel like I am at the mercy of my memories the way I did even a few months ago.

Besides, I met with my rabbi today and he told me to start writing again regularly. Even if it is hard and even if I do not know what to say and even if no one is listening.

Because I just found out my mom is dying.

She has pancreatic cancer and the doctor said she may have only months to live. I hope the doctor is wrong and a specialist will say something different. I am currently going back and forth between shock and denial.

She found this out this past week. The cancer part was confirmed on Friday. On Wednesday (tomorrow) she will have a very detailed CT scan to determine if the tumor is operable. The doctor said the tumor partially or completely surrounds a major blood vessel in her pancreas and is partially or completely blocking the bile ducts. Her lymph nodes are also involved, but we do not know to what extent exactly.

After she has her CT scan she will see a specialist about treatment options, although from what her current doctor says, it is more a matter of putting off the inevitable than it is actually treating.

My mom lives 2000 miles away. I have a brother who lives near her and is very close to her emotionally. I hope that I and my children (my mom's only grandchildren) will be able to see her once more. Despite all of the challenges in our relationship, my mom and I have reconciled and pretty much figured out how to have an adult friendship without inviting hurt every time we talk to each other. I cannot fathom never getting to give her another hug.

I am scared and sad and hopeful and numb. I want to be able to share this with people I know, but I am unsure if I should post things twice, once here and once somewhere less anonymous. Or if it is time to tell friends that this is my blog, this is a part of me. Some friends already know about my struggles with depression and anxiety. Some might be shocked by what I have written here. I just don't know what to do right now.

My rabbi said I need to check in with him every few days even if it is just a quick note by email. He said this is going to be a difficult journey and one I should not travel alone. In my mind I thought this is especially true as I enter my "dark time" of year.

I will talk with my mom again tomorrow (Wed) night and hear about her scan. We will hopefully also talk about a possible visit and how we can make that happen in terms of time and money.

Right now I just want to curl up somewhere warm, eat something comforting, and not think about this.

Threatening to burst

2008-09-02T21:03:00.005-05:00

Tonight I am tense. I am barely able to breathe. I am dizzy. I feel like whatever is going on inside of me cannot be contained by the confines of my body. I feel a little like I am going crazy.

Today I had only three flashbacks. I could actually feel what I felt so many years ago. I had nightmares last night and woke disoriented and panicked. I have been paralyzed by my warring thoughts and emotions. Yes, this all happened/No, this couldn't possibly have happened. My dad did things he should not have done/Not my dad! He loved me! My feelings are normal/I'm just trying to get attention.

I think I should call my counselor tomorrow, or maybe even tonight, but I don't know what to say.

It is too much. I want to curl up into myself and escape. I want to not feel for a while. I crave release.

Breakthrough or breakdown? part 2

2008-09-01T16:17:00.007-05:00

My counselor took notes on what I was saying and made a copy for me. She says this is what we really need to work on. It is as if the chemical part of the depression and anxiety is more or less stabilized so now the rest of what I keep locked inside can finally come out. (February 22, 2008)

I did not want to deal with this. I have done everything possible to avoid it, and the fantastic reaction I had to the buspirone helped me to keep it away for a bit longer. But even the buspirone cannot keep away what I have kept locked up all these years.

I had to go back through my early posts just to see how much--or how little--I admitted when I started this blog. It wasn't much. In my 'who am I' post, I said I had been diagnosed with PTSD and that The PTSD probably has something to do with being raised in a violent home.

That seems normal, that with all of the raging emotions I had at the time, I could not say any more. But now that medication has stabilized whatever chemical issues my brain has, some wordless intelligence seems to have decided that now is the time to drag out the rest of my issues. I can't even say it now, it is so incredibly hard. But I know that I must. Admitting it is always the first step, is it not?

But I'd rather procrastinate.

Okay, that occupied me for nearly an hour.

The truth is, I am a survivor of child abuse and incest.

My history has been documented going back to my toddler years. Child Protective Services was at my house more than once. My grandmother and a cousin both tried unsuccessfully to gain custody of me when I was about seven, to get me out of that house. There are court and medical records. But until I married and put some distance between my parents and myself, I had little memory of my childhood.

It has been hard for me as welll as for my doctors and psychiatrists and counselors to know what of my depression and anxiety is purely chemical and what is caused by the abuse. I have been reading some studies that show links between child abuse and permanent brain changes, including depression in adulthood.

Both depression and anxiety, as well as repressed memory, dissociation, insomnia, flashbacks, and nightmares (all of which I've had) go hand in hand with post traumatic stress disorder, a common result of trauma. But there is also a history of major depression in my family. My caregivers say it would not be unusual to have both.

Lately I have been having flashbacks and nightmares again, as well as spikes in my anxiety level that aren't controlled by the buspirone. I have been spacey and detached from my body (dissociating). I had to go to an event in public Friday afternoon and I watched myself interact with others, hearing words coming out of my mouth, but I felt I had no control over what I was saying. That was okay. The words coming out of my mouth were far more confident and coherent than anything I could have otherwise thought of.

So I do not know if this is a breakthrough. It feels like a breakdown. Perhaps it is both.

Perfect storm

2008-07-09T11:25:00.001-05:00

I see no point in getting out of bed today. I feel depressed, apathetic, and I ache all over. My husband says this is a perfect storm situation.

Could it really be that simple?

2008-05-11T20:44:00.004-05:00

I am sorry I haven't been here in such a long time. I didn't intend to take a break from blogging, but apparently I needed one, and by the time I realized it, I needed to stay away enough that I couldn't even come post that I needed to take a break. I apologize for my abrupt departure. And I am not sure if I am back yet or not.

Once again, there is so much to share that it seems overwhelming but really the bottom line is that my PA (psychiatrist's assistant) changed my meds. And it worked. Really really worked.

She was concerned that even with an increase of the Prozac to 70mg/day I still wasn't getting better. In fact I started getting worse, with symptoms of Tardive Dyskinesia.

At one appointment she said, we've been treating this all along as depression with a side of anxiety. But your anxiety always comes first before the depression, so let's try treating this as an anxiety disorder with a side of depression. She has me slowly lowering the Prozac dose by 10mg/month (I'm now down to 40mg/day) which helped relieve the TD. And then she put me on Buspirone.

Buspirone is my new best friend. For the first time since I was about eleven, I can just sit and be, without needing to fix something or do something or even feel guilty about sitting and being. For the first time in a very long time, I feel calm.

I've been taking some time for myself, time to read without guilt, reconnect with friends without pressure, time to do some of the things I want to do and let go of the things I think I should do. (That's where the break from blogging came in.)

This was the first year that Pesach cleaning was not a source of panic and anxiety. I actually enjoyed getting the kitchen clean and into order. I was relaxed and a day ahead of schedule until I got sick (24 hour bug) and even then I was relaxed and catching up. It was amazing.

Life has slowed down a bit for me, though I am still dealing with the same small children and all the same volunteer activities. But now with the new meds, I can go for a walk in the morning with a cup of coffee, enjoy the sights and sounds, and even taking out this 30 minutes just for me, I am actually more productive during the rest of my day. I work a little more slowly, but I get more done. I don't entirely understand that, but I like it.

Meanwhile, I am very aware that I'm coming up on one year since my miscarriage and the delivery and burial of my daughter. I'm a little sad but I feel at peace with it. I am still hoping, baruch Hashem, to have another baby, but I also have come to terms with the possibility that it might not happen.

I am also off the Lunesta, finally. I was very sick with strep throat for a week right after Pesach and couldn't take any medication at all. By the time I was better, I decided I wanted to try sleeping naturally. Sleep is still elusive; last night I slept from 2-3:30 a.m. and 5-7 a.m. That's it. If I need to, I'll go back on the Lunesta, but I'm still hoping to do this one thing med free.

For now, as long as I have my Buspirone I'm happy. Finally.

Breakthrough or breakdown?

2008-02-22T13:24:00.000-05:00

I saw my counselor again today and had one of the most intense sessions I think I've ever had. All of the feelings, the seeking, the anxiety, even the depression that usually comes this time of year all came to a head this morning.

My counselor took notes on what I was saying and made a copy for me. She says this is what we really need to work on. It is as if the chemical part of the depression and anxiety is more or less stabilized so now the rest of what I keep locked inside can finally come out.

I read her notes on the way home and was sobbing again. I wanted to share them here but I don't have the energy to go through it again. I will try again after Shabbos.

I am exhausted and shaking. Already I feel like I spent that hour in counseling just whining and complaining about "poor me." My husband came with me today because I was in no shape to drive and he thought this might be a good session for his input (it was) and he says I did a lot of very hard emotional work and hopefully this means I can start to heal.

I am still afraid I am being too self-absorbed but I am too tired to argue.

Coping as best I can

2008-02-07T23:08:00.001-05:00

I called my counselor today. She only had a moment when she returned my message, another client was waiting, but she created a new appointment for me next Wednesday. By then I should know if the medication is working.

Today I was trembling all day, anxiety trapped in the confines of my body. I can still focus on a task. I remember how much painting helped after my pregnancy loss, so I started to paint my kitchen. It is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I am doing small sections at a time. Today I primed one half of one wall.

This weekend is a big one for my oldest child, with a major school program on Sunday. A smaller program is tomorrow afternoon, part of welcoming Shabbos. He is nervous because he is performing. I am nervous because I need to hold myself together.

You all are right: my perspective is flawed. Even the way I see myself in the mirror is skewed from what it was a couple of weeks ago. I do not like what I see.

My friend D called tonight to see how I was doing but I was too tired to talk long. Another friend came over this afternoon and helped with my kitchen while we talked.

I want to hide from shul but I will not. I need to face this. It doesn't have to be a repeat of last year or the many years prior.

I am still anxious and scared and worried the crash is coming, but I am trying my best to use my coping skills to get through the minute, the hour, the day.

Waiting for what, I do not know. Perhaps it's as simple as peace. I wait and cope, hoping that peace will come soon.

Coping as best I can

2008-02-07T23:08:00.000-05:00

Chaos

2008-02-05T17:51:00.000-05:00

There is a battle raging within me. I feel like I am in chaos. It is so hard to focus.

This is what I'd described in the hospital years ago that the doctor thought might be a manic episode. I can tell as I sit here awash in the feelings that it is not. A very good friend stopped by today because she was concerned and I liked her description of mania versus what I am feeling.

Mania, she said, is GO!

What I am feeling is not linear. It spirals, swirls, but trapped, contained. Like vegetables in a pressure cooker and I don't know how to release it without spraying carrots and potatos all over. I feel like I am about to crawl out of my skin. I have felt like this for two days now.

Every sudden sound makes me jump severely. I am so self-conscious that I feel embarrassed to even take up space. I feel that I must apologize for my existence. I am certain that everything I do or say somehow detracts from everyone else.

I want to be distracted, to focus on something other than what I'm feeling. The TV writers' strike is not helping. I am reading but sometimes even focusing on the words and what they are saying is too much. I am constantly figdeting, using my hands, and I scratch and pick and rub without even being aware of it.

Sunday night I took a bath to relax but somehow I zoned out or something and I scratched parts of my shin until they bled. The pain and scabs now remind me that I am, in a way, disconnected from my body. I know this is dangerous. I know this is where the urge to cut can become so strong just so that I feel something on the outside, so that I can show others exactly how much it hurts inside.

Last night I managed to redirect this energy and gave myself a sort of manicure. It got me through an hour and now my nails look neat and shiny. But once I was done, I had to figure out how to get through the next hour. And the next.

Today I spent the day listening to the same six songs over and over again while cleaning my kitchen. I mopped a very dirty part of the floor and then I had to wash the walls and the baseboards in that corner. It is as if the only way to channel this chaotic energy is to focus on smaller and smaller detaisl. First it was the floor. Then the walls. Then the baseboards. Then I was on my knees scraping the tiny cracks where the floor meets the baseboard and the baseboard meets the walls. I was just shy of searching for a used toothbrush and a handful of toothpicks to do an even better job when my friend stopped by.

She asked me to try a yoga pose with her called Mountain. I tried. I managed to get myself to stand up straight but I couldn't relax my shoulders or keep my hands down at my sides. When she asked me to take a deep breath, I couldn't. It physically hurt in my chest. I was so self-conscious I was almost in tears. My hands won't stop shaking. My chin trembles when I try to be still.

Curling up into a ball feels comfortable, wrapping my arms around me and tucking my chin into my chest. My husband calls it 'turtling.' I still cannot tell if I am too hot or too cold. I seem to bounce back and forth between the two.

Sunday I increased my Prozac from 50mg/day to 60mg, as the psychiatrist's assistant recommended--when I saw her last she said if I needed to before she saw me again, I shouldn't hesitate to go up to 60. I don't know if I caught it in time. It will take a week or so for me to start feeling a difference, two weeks to really notice it.

In the meantime one of my children has a program at school and I will have to get myself together enough to go out and be in public. That terrifies me.

And I know what is coming next. Something small, insignificant will happen. I will hear something said or see someone look at me and interpret it all wrong and then will come the crash. All this spiraling chaos will turn into a maelstrom, pulling me down until I am submerged and drowning. I can hope that I increased the meds in time to avoid this or that it will be less severe but I am not convinced that hoping will do much good.

My husband wants me to call my counselor but I am so certain that there is nothing anyone can do. All I can do is ride it out, take it hour by hour or minute by minute and focus on what I can do--but not too much focus on too much detail--and keep taking my meds and try to be aware of my body and hold back the urge to scratch or cut. I am so certain of this that I see no point in calling.

It is what it is and I can't see how anyone can help.

Lost

2008-02-03T18:05:00.000-05:00

I don't want to jump to conclusions but I am scared.

I have been so tired for so long. The upgrade to 5mg Lunesta has helped me sleep through the night most nights but I still spend a larger percentage of my daytime looking forward to sleep than I do looking forward to anything else.

Erev shabbos I went to bed early, feeling dizzy and unable to stand up any longer. I planned to be at shul in the morning. I woke at 3:37pm Shabbos afternoon. My husband says I am exhausted and needed the sleep. I am not sure what I am doing that is so exhausting.

I dozed on and off until my regular bedtime and then took the Lunesta. I slept through the night again and am sure I dreamed something important, though I cannot remember what it was. I woke this morning feeling a little better. More awake but not more energized.

As today wore on, it was as if my nerve endings were getting increasingly frayed. Being around even just a couple of people felt like I was suffocating in a crowd. Every noise was loud and grating. Every voice too shrill. Every touch painful.

I want to shrink into myself, curl up and hide away somewhere. I can sense tears, though I wouldn't call it sadness. Maybe just lost. There are projects I want to do but no energy to do them. Everything is a strain, a chore. Everything wears me out. My body cannot decide if it is too hot or too cold; it only knows it is not comfortable. Clothing is too scratchy, too warm, too something.

I really thought I felt okay late last week but now my husband says he's seen me headed this way for the past week. I am scared, concerned that this is my bad time of year, this is the treacherous path through the calendar, but this recent feeling seems to have come on too quickly, too sudden and without warning.

Due to scheduling conflicts, I will not see my counselor for three weeks. I will not see the psychiatrist's assistant for another two months. This doesn't seem like something to take to my rabbi. I don't even know if this is something I should do something about or something to wait and see or something not to worry about.

Is it just exhaustion? Or side effects of either of my medications? Or have I already crossed the anxiety bridge, missed the red flags again, and started my stay on Depression Island? I can't tell anymore. I only know I want to be quiet and alone and to sleep.

Playing with fire

2008-02-01T12:48:00.000-05:00

It is almost Shabbos and I am feeling anxious and disconnected.

I have finally identified the feeling I was trying so hard to name in my post, Seeking. I don't know if it has a name, but it has a description. It is the feeling of being completely, totally vulnerable and knowing, trusting without reservation, that you are loved. No dark secrets, no white lies, no closet skeletons.

It is a type of intimacy but having nothing to do with sex. It is someone seeing every part of me, every secret I want to keep hidden, every action of which I am ashamed, and that someone still loving me, valuing me, unconditionally.

Perhaps that is part of the very nature of our relationship with G-d.

Once I identified this, I had to call D, who thought that this also ought to be the essence of a parent-child relationship and a marriage, though too often it isn't.

I told D that sometimes I have these intense feelings like what I describe above and then there are other times that it is so very hard to feel connected. I said that it is sometimes like a smoldering--I can't bring myself to think that the light ever goes out--and sometimes like a bonfire. When the light is buried, how can I reignite it? And when it consumes me, how do I tame it?

D suggested I go light a fire and see for myself. A fire, I asked? A real fire? D laughed and said I was the one who started the fire analogy in the first place. So I did (outside) and then I called D back with the results.

Paper burns quickly but not for long. Cardboard takes longer to catch but burns longer and each of the layers pulls away from each other. Wood takes the longest to catch but burns the longest. A smoldering requires paper, not wood. A bonfire is tamed by spreading out the wood so it isn't so concentrated.

D said very nice, now finish the analogy. I said paper is only a single layer, cardboard is a few layers, and wood is many layers, very dense. When I'm feeling the smoldering and I want more ignition, I have to add to my life things with only one or a few layers. I can't expect to take on something very layered and dense and have it reignite that fire. And when I'm feeling overwhelmed, too much feeling, too much fire, I have to spread it out, do fewer things, take it slowly, allow more air (oxygen) to tame the burning.

D liked my answer and then asked, what is the paper in your life? What is the cardboard? What is the wood?

Fixing Shabbos dinner for family plus guests is wood, for me. Going to shul and hoping for intense is wood. But the little things, maybe they are paper. Taking a relaxing bath. Using some nice moisturizer on my hands. The little self-care things that are in my anti-anxiety kit. I'm not sure what else.

Cardboard might be listening to music that I can sing and dance along with. Going for a long walk. Getting together with a friend, or a small group of friends.

I will have to think about this more, identify the things that help me feel more connected and happier and less anxious, and figure out which ones are paper and cardboard and wood. Because if I am trying to restart a smoldering ember with a piece of wood, that would explain a lot. And if I am expecting paper to keep the fire going for days or weeks or months, that would explain a lot too.

And I cannot help but wonder if this is the right analogy after all, because if it is, what does it mean in real life, then, to get burned?

Seeing the new doctor

2008-01-21T23:14:00.000-05:00

I think perhaps G-d is taking care of me.

I saw my new psychiatrist's assistant today and I like her. She is very perky and energetic and talked fast today but she was running late and we had a lot of ground to cover in a short time.

She is leaving me on the Prozac at the current level and concurrs with everyone else's diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder. I don't think, with my history, anyone can argue with that. She saw that my previous psychiatrist had indicated OCD and with as recent as that diagnosis is, she wants to work with it a little and see if it is true OCD or some other anxiety disorder with obsessive compulsive tendencies.

The thing she said that surprised me the most is that she thinks the fact that I'm not in as good a place as I could be is that we're missing--that is, not treating--something underlying. She said the things I described with my sleep and anxiety sound very much like post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

I was diagnosed with PTSD years ago, but I assumed it resolved when I stopped having flashbacks and excessive hypervigilance. She said if it is PTSD, it might mean a slight alteration in my meds, but mostly she thinks I'm on the right thing.

Except for sleep. It's too hard to say right now, she said, if I've built up a resistance to Lunesta or if I'm just not at a high enough dosage to combat the Prozac or if there's something else going on. So until I see her again in about two months--her earliest appointment, she is very busy--I can increase the Lunesta up to 6mg/night.

I know I am sensitive to medicine so I'll increase 1mg (1/2 tablet) at a time and see what happens. I don't want to take 6mg tonight and wake up on Friday!

Or maybe I do. I have been thinking about how nice it might be to hibernate and avoid this difficult time of year altogether. But then I think of how many things I might miss out on, too.

One thing she said is that she wants me to expand my list of things I do for "fun." She thinks there is too much in each of my days that is about taking care of others and not enough taking care of myself.

Of course in my mind, it is just the opposite. How dare I take a full eight hours for sleep! Think of all the good I could be doing during that time!

I think I have just figured out that my taking care of others around me is related very much to my having high expectations of myself, and others too to some extent. I will have to explore that further.

For tonight, a little more Lunesta and hopefully a full night's sleep.

Limbo

2008-01-18T10:37:00.000-05:00

I feel as though I am in limbo. But it makes me wonder, what is limbo anyway? I see now, it's a Catholic origin. The description fits, but I'd rather have a Jewish term.

All I know is that I am not in a bad place, but I am not in a good place either. My meds are keeping the depression and anxiety at bay for now, which is a very good thing. The anxiety has been tolerable and while I have times of higher anxiety and negative self-talk, the majority of the time it is manageable.

My sleep is another issue altogether. I'm still taking 4mg Lunesta a night but it takes 1-2 hours to fall asleep and I wake for the first time after only 3 hours, then nearly hourly after that. My mind isn't racing or busy. I'm calm, relaxed. Just awake. There used to be only dark circles around my eyes; now there are bags under them large enough I think they're going on vacation.

I would call to change this, but I can't. A couple of months ago, my primary psychiatrist, who prescribed this for me in the first place and said I could take up to 4mg/night left the clinic where I'm seen. That was okay, because my regular monthly med checks were with the psychiatrist's assistant. But she left the clinic last month and I'm waiting to get an intake with a different psychiatrist's assistant--supervised by a different psychiatrist--and until I have that intake, there is no one to sign off on any changes to my meds.

This has had me a bit stressed. I liked the women I saw before. I don't know how my relationship will be with these new people. And I have trust issues.

My intake is currently scheduled for next Monday. I'm going to tell her all about the sleep issue. It's only been this way since I increased the Prozac from 40mg/day to 50mg/day so I am hoping I can increase the Lunesta a bit to compensate for the increase in Prozac.

Meanwhile, I go through my days dazed from lack of any quality sleep. Last night, for example, I took my Lunesta at 9:30pm. I finally fell asleep at 11:00pm. I woke at 1:00am and thankfully was back asleep within 15 minutes. I woke again at 3:11am and did not get back to sleep until 4:30am. I woke again at 6:00am, fell back asleep, and woke at 7:37am when I finally got up.

But I am dizzy and forgetful and stumbling and I have a big day today with many things to do before Shabbos and today is a day I am actually glad we do not have company coming over because I simply couldn't handle it.

And so I am on some sort of edge (limbo). The edge of sleep, the edge of sanity, the edge of complete consciousness. I don't know. I only know that while I've been in worse situations and baruch HaShem I'm not there now, I'd kind of like to not be in this one either.

I (day)dream of sleep.

One step forward but how many back?

2008-01-09T16:12:00.000-05:00

I am not doing so well today.

I tried to stay with the feeling I wrote about on Monday but it was elusive and by night time I was simply too tired. Yesterday I woke feeling even more tired and by last night my anxiety was really high. I managed to stop pulling hair and got out the brush from my anti-anxiety kit and proceded to work on pulling bristle hairs out. I should add it is not as easy as it sounds.

Then I felt the old familiar icky feeling, criticizing me for pulling bristle hairs out, that I was destroying this perfectly usable brush, commiting myself to destructive actions, and wasting the money spent on this brush just to tear it apart. Hairs at least, the feeling said, would grow back and wouldn't cost me anything.

I tried the self-talk I've been working on in therapy against the feeling: everyone else would rather see me pull bristles out of a brush than pull my own hair out; this is what I bought the brush for; better I hurt the brush than hurt myself.

And the feeling returned with images of my torturing this poor brush when I was the one who deserved the pain.

I told my husband I wasn't doing so well, about my anxiety. He thought it was due to exhaustion and he had a point. I had slept maybe 12 hours in the past 4 days. So I took my Lunesta and went to bed and fell asleep quickly.

While sleeping, I dreamed. I dreamed that I had a conversation with one of the Rabbis quoted in the Talmud. He expressed great concern over my urge to hurt myself, even to harm a single hair.

And then somehow in the dream I knew that he was quoted in the Jerusalem Talmud but not much if at all in the Babylonian Talmud and how the BT is generally considered more complete and consequently more authoritative than the JT and I wondered in the dream what it meant that I was visited by someone less prominent and if that was a reflection on me. And before he left he said something about how this was concerning that even in my sleep I was looking for ways to put myself down.

I woke groggy and still very tired and with a tremendous headache that encompasses the entire left side of my head. It is hard to concentrate. I think I should not be driving. I fear I am wasting time by not accomplishing anything productive today.

I was certain I was doing better, improving. Using my brush instead of myself. And on Shabbos I used my plan again. I was feeling a bit fragile and rather than invite opportunities to feel marginalized, I went up to a woman I know well, who knows what's going on with me, and said, I'm feeling a little fragile right now; can I hang out with you for a little bit? She said of course and included me in her conversations with others and about 20 minutes later I felt much better and was able to stand on my own again.

If I am doing better, making better choices, managing better, then why do I feel this way? Why do I search for a negative in what would otherwise have been a very intriguing dream? Does this increase in anxiety have anything to do with the overwelming feeling I had Monday? Am I expecting too much too soon? Why am I still convinced I have wasted today because I didn't get anything "done"?

And why does the thought of tomorrow bring with it more fear than hope?

Seeking

2008-01-07T17:14:00.000-05:00

Now I must address the feeling I have been trying to avoid since the last post.

My mind wants to find easy origins: not enough sleep, going without Lunesta for one night, hormone changes, no view of the sun in the sky today. But none of these seem right because this is a pervasive, encompassing feeling. It led me to select certain books over others from the library this morning. It determined which articles and blogs I've read today. It has kept me from wanting to answer the phone when it rings, even when the caller is a friend.

I feel it in my shoulders and upper arms, like a physical longing for a hug or the need to cradle a baby. I feel it in my chest, tight and compressed like I know something is looming on the horizon but I can't see it yet. I feel it in my stomach, a sort of dread as if I know the truth is going to be dragged out of me one way or another but it will ultimately be a relief. I feel it in my legs, wanting to run from this but knowing there is nowhere to go.

It isn't a sadness, exactly, but I can feel tears nearby. It reminds me of the way I feel sometimes when I see a TV ad like this Hallmark commercial.

It isn't depression. There is definitely hope there, not hopelessness.

It isn't loss, I don't think. I haven't lost anything recently, big or small, but it does feel like I sometimes do when I remember someone close who is no longer living.

It isn't gratitude, but there is an element of thankfulness. I read today something my rabbi wrote recently (not to me specifically) about accepting each other's humanity--rabbis and congregants--and all that entails, and I was so overcome with this feeling that I momentarily felt weak.

It isn't fear, but there's definitely something there that I'm afraid of.

It is a feeling that flares up when I think about friendship and the sacrifices we make willingly--even eagerly--for those close to us. It is similar to how I feel when I hear about a police officer losing his life while protecting someone else.

It is how I sometimes feel--if I am lucky--in shul, davening and suddenly overcome with a need to convey through my prayers, Thank you, and I'm so sorry, and I miss you when I'm not paying attention.

I hear others around me, the whisper of silent prayers, and I know there are others here in pain and in mourning, those experiencing gratitude and relief and the realization of long-held dreams. And everyone has brought these parts of themselves to this one place on this one day to share, however privately or publicly, with G-d.

And I see glimpses of this humanity in action: one man trusting enough--or hurting enough--to weep openly and consoled by the man next to him. One woman surrounded by others, some of whom are offering comfort and others who are supporting her simply by being present. One exhausted mother relieved temporarily of her active children by a few teens who offered to help. One elder repsectfully helped to a seat. One rabbi passing by a congregant on his way to somewhere else, then stopping, returning to the congregant, and asking, are you okay?

I see this and I am humbled and moved beyond words. It occurs to me that this is what it's all about. Whatever it is, it is present here, now.

My husband called me as I was writing this post and I answered the phone and the display said CONNECTING before I put it to my ear.

What I am feeling has something to do with connection. Something deeper than community, more complex than love. It is seeing that connection, knowing that connection, having experienced that connection and also the loss of it when I needed it. It is wanting a constancy of that connection. It is recognizing that I need this connection in my life and knowing all too well what it's like to not feel it. It is hoping, struggling, craving, longing, physically and spiritually yearning.

I still don't know exactly what I'm feeling. But apparently it has something to do with seeking G-d.

Competition, blogging, self-esteem and a bit of procrastination

2008-01-07T15:33:00.000-05:00

I have been in the midst of a very intense emotion all day today and I can't identify it. Whatever it is, I'm afraid to go near it but I am drawn to things that touch on it, that resonate with it. I called my friend D while I was running errands this morning and D suggested I blog about it, that maybe by writing about it, whatever it is, I could identify it.

So that is what I will try to do. But not now. Because it's still too scary right now. Maybe when I'm done with this post?

Instead I will write about something else that has come up that has left me with mixed feelings. When I started this blog, I didn't really know what I was doing (I still don't, really). I looked at a lot of other blogs and here and there I picked up references to various aggregators and the whole feed thing that I still don't understand.

But I submitted my blog because I knew that if no one knew I was here, no one would read anything, and I knew--I just knew--that eventually I would use that as a weapon against myself, a way to prove that my depression was right all along and no one cared and I was just babbling away to no one and it wasn't going to make a difference so why bother?

I am moved beyond expression that the blogosphere in general and the Jewish blogosphere in specific has proved that train of thought very, very wrong. That potential weapon has been neutralized. And now with mixed feelings I have become aware of another.

I didn't realize that one of the aggregators encourages readers to rate posts, or that it automatically rates the post as soon as it becomes aware of it. The aggregator appears to rate the post based on the number of words; short posts, even if they speak of something important, are rated lower than long posts even if they are about nothing. One of my readers pointed me toward this aggregator (JBlogCentral) and explained to me about the ratings and how readers can rate posts and what it meant that I had an overal rating of 4+ stars with only a couple hundred points. And then I found out about the JBlogAwards.

It took me a while, clicking on things around the site, to figure out how it worked, and then I felt uneasy when the site itself encouraged bloggers to rate their own posts.

Because when I write something, it isn't here to compete with everyone else's posts or earn me international attention or win a Pulitzer prize. I'm not qualified to offer psychiatric advice or rabbinic advice or medical advice. It's just me, trying to muddle through life the best I can while dealing with depression and anxiety, and relying very much on the strength I have found in being Jewish.

I know that competition is a good thing, generally. Competition is what allows me to afford my prescriptions. Competition is what drives my need to give my children the Jewish education I never had. Competition keeps a paycheck coming into our family.

But how do I take it when some people rate a post that to me is raw and vulnerable and just lays my reality out there for everyone to see, a five and others rate it a three? Or a one? Was I just not angst-ridden enough? Not compelling enough? Not provacative enough? Not political enough? Perhaps I didn't provide enough gossip or badmouth people in shul or threaten to out my rabbi? Or perhaps I was too much out there, too emotional, too honest. I don't know.

I remind myself that I am writing this blog primarily for me because I have never successfully maintained a written offline journal. As a bonus, the feedback I've received is tremendously helpful. And a result I never expected was that it's apparently helping others, those who are experiencing similar issues, those who are caring for those experiencing similar issues, and those who want to help via their profession or vocation or simply because it's important to them.

At the same time I'm reminding myself of this, I'm noting that some of the blogs I enjoy visiting, like Rabbi Without a Cause and A Mother in Israel, are at least today on the Top 50 blogs list. Yid With Lid, who hosted the most recent Haveil Havalim, is today number three.

What do I feel? Disappointment? A touch of benign envy? Happy with the overall ratings despite individual votes? Does it affect my ego? Should it? Why does it even make a difference? Who relies on those ratings anyway? Is that last question at all a sour-grapes sentiment?

I want to be Seen and noticed and valued, and the ratings and awards seem like a good way to accomplish that, but there is dark territory in there for me.

My feelings are very mixed. The only way I know that my blog is anything positive in the world is from comments and email that people have left, and the occasional mention on another blog. I can't at this time trust ratings and awards. There is too much potential for me to criticize myself or stomp on an already wavering self-esteem if I allow ratings and awards to define the worth of what I write, which on this blog, is most certainly tied to the worth of me.

When three out of four IS bad

2008-01-06T16:08:00.000-05:00

My doctors and counselor have emphasized that there are four necessary components to my success in coping with depression and anxiety:

Consistent medication
Proper nutrition
Regular exercise
Adequate sleep

I suppose I could add that a positive attitude helps, but that's just not always possible, and I don't want to sabotage myself by requiring a positive attitude when depressed because that will just set me up for failure.

I'm consistent with the medication. I'm still taking generic Prozac, still at 50mg/day. I know that my ability to cope with each day is due in part to my staying on the medication; forgetting or missing a dose for whatever reason will impair my near future, and I'm the one who has to live with me.

I'm doing better with proper nutrition, in part because my husband is taking better care of himself and is therefore better able to help me with grocery shopping, meal planning, fixing healthy meals and so forth. If it were not for his contribution, there are many times I'm not sure I'd eat at all, much less eating healthy. Keeping kosher usually makes it easier to eat healthy. Sometimes it makes it harder, or at least demands more creativity. It is possible to make a fleishig (non-dairy) chicken pot pie from a treif (non-kosher) recipe, and have it taste good.

I noticed today, in fact, that I have lost some weight and the only major change I've made is eating better. Plus, I like how it feels and that buoys my mood too.

I am not a couch potato but I could do better about getting aerobic exercise. Cleaning house and chasing after children helps but is not quite the same as a workout. If only I had the room and the money to blog on a treadmill. Our health insurance now offers us a reduced membership at the local Jewish Community Center if I exercise some number of days each month. Time will tell if it is incentive enough for me.

And then there is sleep. Or no sleep. Like last night when I finally fell asleep at 5am and woke at 7am.

The Prozac, even when taken in the morning, will disrupt my sleep. It makes my already light sleep practically non-existent. My doctor tried me out with Lunesta, Ambien CR, and Rozerem, and only the Lunesta had positive results. Over the past few months, I've very gradually needed to increase my dose of Lunesta from 1mg/night to 4mg/night. Until recently, it has helped me get to sleep within less than an hour and sleep through the night, waking if I need to without feeling drugged or drowsy. It has brought dreams back into my nighttime, something that has been missing for over a year.

But within the past few weeks it has not been working as well. It's taken me longer to get to sleep and then I wake at 3am or some other middle of the night time and cannot get back to sleep. So I thought last night I would try going without it. Unfortunately, that meant going without sleep, too.

I know that Lunesta, like many sleep aids, does have a risk of dependency so that going without it may cause a few nights of interrupted sleep before the body's own sleep cycle takes over again. That appears to be the case with me. I don't see my doctor for another week, so I'm not quite sure what to do. What I know for certain is that I need my sleep. I need that REM sleep. I need more than 2 hours a night.

I'm doing pretty well on the 50mg/day of Prozac and there's no indication at this time that last year will repeat itself, despite my worries to the contrary. But staying out of the depression by using medication is resulting in less sleep, which increases my risk of depression, which might cause another meds increase, which will result in less sleep, which increases the risk....

It is enough of a challenge to live with the depression and anxiety/OCD, knowing there is no cure, only management. Why does treatment have to be so challenging too?

It maks me really wonder what G-d wants me to learn from this.

Haveil Havalim at YID With LID

2008-01-06T15:04:00.000-05:00

Thank you to Yid With Lid for posting this week's Haveil Havalim and including my blog.

Musaf as therapy

2008-01-01T20:57:00.000-05:00

I think there is a lot to be said for sacrifice.

Let me explain that. I'm not saying it's time to fire up the altar, and I don't want to go anywhere near the political ramifications of rebuilding the Temple. I'm not even saying that sacrifice has to involve death. Not like it used to.

Rabbinic Judaism has replaced the Temple offerings with our tefillot, our prayers, which require an investment of time and effort, and if you count synagogue membership and other annual contributions, also money. Musaf is the additional prayer service that represents the additional Temple offering on Shabbat and holidays.

I think about this and I am not certain it is enough. Because nearly everything in life today requires an investment of time and effort and money. What makes our offering to G-d any different than our offering to a political cause or a social cause or a few hours of Internet shopping?

To me, it should be different. It should be special. And so when I reach Musaf and I'm contemplating the role of the Temple in our collective history, I take a moment to reflect on a different sort of sacrifice, my own "addition."

What do I personally need to sacrifice that is standing in the way of my connection with G-d?

What obsolete defenses, inaccurate fears, faulty assumptions have cluttered my life and made it harder to reach my potential? Which of those need to "die" and make room for new life?

Lately I've worked on my fear of loss, my tenuous trust in the universe, my fear of not belonging, not deserving, not having the right to be.

It isn't easy. It isn't painless. Sometimes this blog is part of that sacrifice because there's safety, it seems, in silence, in never bringing these things to light.

Speaking up means I have to think about it, put words to it, talk about it. Hear others' opinions and ideas. Learn from it. Change it. Allow myself to be changed for the better.

It seems to me that is at the heart of Judaism itself.

Sorry this seat is taken

2008-01-01T20:42:00.000-05:00

I started blogging 50 weeks ago. Almost a year. Due to the depression, I have only hazy memories of last January, so I went to see what I'd blogged about then.

Much to my surprise, very early on there's a post about being told, sorry this seat is taken, again and again at a shul-sponsored brunch.

Interesting. How much has stayed the same and yet how much has changed.

You don't need OCD to need a fixed place in shul

2008-01-01T19:26:00.000-05:00

I hadn't spoken with my friend D in a while, until yesterday, when D called with new year's wishes and to check in. D reads this blog regularly and occasionally calls to talk with me about something I've written. (D was the one who got me to start this blog in the first place, since I was horrible about keeping a written diary.)

My last post about being embarrassed to admit that I was afraid of losing my seat in shul caught D's attention.

Why are you embarrassed to say you want to sit in the same seat at shul?

Because in comparison to everything else, it seems so mundane. So insignificant.

And yet you write--without embarrassment I presume--that having a seat at a table with others for a meal at shul is quite significant. How are they different?

(I hate it when D points out my inconsistencies.)

They are. Let me see if I can explain. Knowing that you have a place to sit, to daven, to be in shul without worrying about taking someone else's seat or breaking some protocol is something I consider important. So important, that I'm always thinking of people who come in after me, and what if they don't have a seat? I find myself wanting to make myself smaller or sometimes even to disappear so they can have my seat and won't have to go through the discomfort I've felt. But at meals, which are far less frequent than once a week to begin with, usually everyone else is already seated, so I'm not as worried about people coming in after me.

Rivka, I've lost count of the number of assumptions you've made in that explanation. It sounds to me like you value having a regular, fixed place to daven, a makom kavua, and you value having a place to sit at a meal where you're valued as a person and not just a mother. Yet you seem to be saying that you don't deserve the first and you do deserve the second. I'm curious why you don't feel you deserve a place in shul?

I don't know. It just seems like others are more deserving.

Based on what? Do you think G-d wants you to disappear so someone else can have your seat? Do you think the congregation wants that? The rabbi?

No.

I don't think so either. In fact, I think they all want you to take your seat and inspire others to sit with you.

I don't know how to do that.

I know my feelings of "deservedness" are related to my history and my depression, not to mention my self-esteem. But even when my head understands that it's okay to need a fixed place, my heart doesn't accept that I'm worthy enough.

A Chanukah gift from my rabbi

2007-12-28T14:25:00.000-05:00

When I met with my rabbi again a week later, he began by asking me what are the obstacles to feeling relaxed and happy in shul.

Three came immediately to mind.

The first was that I am occasionally asked to help in a variety of ways. I love this. It helps me feel connected and valued and a real part of the community. Some things, like helping out in the kitchen, are easy and require no planning on my part. Other things, like being asked to lead a children's service or women's tefillah group, are not.

It isn't that they require planning. I know these things well enough that I could probably do them cold. But I am scared to. Maybe it is the OCD or maybe it's my experience or maybe it's something entirely different, but I get extremely anxious if I haven't practiced and prepared to the point of knowing it backwards and forwards and upside down. And even then I am scared but I do it anyway. And it always works out well and no one has ever suggested I not do this anymore, but I am terrified of making a mistake.

To that, my rabbi told me what he tells his bar and bat mitzvah students. He said in school, to get an A you need to score at least 90%. So however much of whatever they are doing for their bar or bat mitzvah, if they get 90% of it right, they've earned an A. The previous Shabbos, for instance, the bar mitzvah davened about 2/3 of the service and layned all but one of the Torah readings. Figuring the bar mitzvah was leading maybe two hours of the morning, my rabbi said he could have had 12 minutes of mistakes and still earned an A, and to date, no one has ever had that many mistakes.

This helped a little. I still have to find ways to cope with the anxiety, but he said he would do his part to give me advance notice if there was something he wanted me to do.

The second thing I said was silly and I was embarrassed to even bring it up. My rabbi assured me, and in earnest, that it could not be silly. So I told him, still feeling embarrassed, that I was afraid of losing my seat. You see, I almost always sit in the same seat on Shabbos. I chose it years ago and made sure it had been unoccupied before me. It still seems silly to say, but it has great meaning and significance for me.

But one of the times I was absent with a long depression, another woman began sitting there. When I returned one Shabbos and she came in late, she was horribly upset with me that I had taken her seat. She went to other women and complained about me. One mutual friend said yes, it's been your (her) seat for a short while, but before it was your seat, it indeed was Rivka's. I felt, in a word, ashamed. This other woman decided to move and found a seat that was better for her, she said, but it took a very long time before I felt comfortable in my seat again. And to this day, I am anxious until I arrive at shul and see that my seat is available.

I did tell my rabbi that someone--like him--could use this as a reason for me to be in shul every single week, and the earlier the better. He laughed and said, I wasn't going to go there, really. The reality, we both know, is that I have young children and a brain disorder and people get sick on occasion and sometimes I can't make it on time, if at all. He said he would be willing, and saw no problem with, putting a sign on that seat that said, please do not sit here until X hour. I was afraid of that beginning a whole seat reservation system, so I declined, but he seemed seriously willing to do that and it really touched me.

The third and last thing had to do with dinners that take place a few times a year in the shul. On those occasions, I told him, when there is no pre-arranged seating, it is very common for me to wind up virtually alone with my family. Let me explain. Some tables seat 8. Others seat 10. My family is not so large that we'd occupy an entire table (b'ezrat HaShem, it will someday be larger). People tend to gravitate toward their friends and people they know well, and despite the fact that I have been at this shul actively for thirteen years, I am still a newcomer. So other tables fill quickly and I need to sit with my children, so we find a table and there are still enough seats for others to join us but no one does. It is very hard not to take this personally, even though I know it is not intended as such. My solution is that I stopped going, but this still left me feeling sad and excluded.

This Chanukah, the shul hosted a latke dinner on a Sunday evening and there was no pre-arranged seating. My children really wanted to go, so we went. After Ma'ariv, we were one of the last families to find seats, because as many parents know, people without children can move faster than those of us with, and there were few children that evening.

I was near tears, just knowing this was going to happen again, when my rabbi came up beside me and gestured to a particular table with one parent and one child sitting at it. I looked around and saw everyone else was seated. He saw that, too, and as soon as his wife emerged from the kitchen, he wordlessly asked her to sit at our table. And when he was done with the parts of the evening that required him to be standing and mobile, he came and sat with us. It was the first time in at least eight years that I have sat at a table with adults other than my husband to talk to.

I don't know if he realized just how meaningful that gesture was. In a way, I really hope he does, because it meant the world to me, not to have to be left out of the conversation, left out of the community, again. And I got to know his wife a little better, which was very nice. It was a truly wonderful gift.

What if you gave a party and nobody came?

2007-12-25T21:20:00.000-05:00

Rabbi Without a Cause has a post up about birthday parties and I have not been able to stop thinking about my experiences with them.

I have already had my birthday for 2007. That narrows it down, doesn't it?

My next birthday is a big one for me. I would love to have a party. A big party. Maybe even a surprise party. But I am really, really scared about that.

Growing up, there was not a single birthday I remember--and I have a very good memory--that wasn't upstaged by a sibling. Usually a male sibling, for whatever that's worth. Extended family would come and ask me about school or whatever was new in my life, and I always had something going on that I was very excited about, and they'd be all ears until any of said siblings walked in the room. You could see all eyes turn to said sibling and I would be forgotten. Not for just a few seconds or minutes. For the whole rest of the evening. And it was my birthday party.

My sixteenth birthday I was certain everyone was planning a suprise party. None of my friends at school said anything and every previous year they had giftwrapped my locker door. This year nothing, so I was sure something was afoot. Some previous years my mom would offer to make me a special breakfast on my birthday. This year she'd stayed up late and slept in. My friends and I usually hung out for a while after school. This year they all had to go home right away.

I went home laughing with joy that I'd figured it out and when I would get home all my friends and family would be there and it would be a dream come true.

I got home and silence. My mom was at the grocery store. Siblings were at their various other commitments. I waited. And waited.

My father came home from work. My mom asked what I wanted for my birthday dinner.

There was no party. The surprise was on me; when I asked my school friends the next day, they had all forgotten it was my birthday.

As an adult I have tried a few times to host a party. Free food, free cake, no gifts expected, a fun time for all. One year I invited everyone I knew at the time, sending out a couple dozen invitations. No one called to RSVP. No one showed up.

So I am wary about having another party, or asking for one. Because with my wacky brain chemistry the way it already is, this is the sort of repeated experience that fuels the belief that no one cares.

To my husband, a birthday party is just a birthday party, no big deal. To me it is much, much more than that.

Being truly SEEN by the rabbi

2007-12-23T20:14:00.000-05:00

This, they would say in counseling, is progress.

It is ten minutes since I finished that last post and what I was writing sent me into a new flurry of anxiety. I managed to calm the hair-pulling by forcing both hands on the keyboard, but then those anti-anxiety cleaning instincts took over. I really should clean my keyboard. Not a wipe off the surface cleaning, but a take off all the keys and deep clean with Q-tips and rubbing alcohol. My mouse isn't looking so shiny, either. And there's dust on the monitor and the windows need cleaning and the carpet needs to be vacuumed and the children keep getting out of bed and anything--anything--but sit here and write about how I will not be needy and I'm not worth the rabbi's attention.

I will combat faulty self-talk with logic.

All in all, I met with my rabbi five times over the span of four weeks. This was not at my suggestion. I would have been happy with something more frequent than once every two years. But he saw some necessity in it, and he thought it was worth his time, and he could have had his choice of excuses why we couldn't meet and he didn't take any of them. I know that I cannot always trust my sense of self-worth, but I am certain I can trust his. He thinks I am worth it. I am overruled. Case dismissed.

I wish it were all that easy.

At my third meeting with him, I asked him if he had any idea how hard it was to come see him without an agenda. He gave me a smile that--if interpreted correctly--was somewhere between "It's good for you" and "I don't know, I've never tried it."

He wanted me to talk more about reintegration at shul. How was it going? I told him. Some people did just pick up where we left off. Some had forgotten about my late miscarriage last spring and didn't understand why I felt a pang of hurt when I saw the babies who had been born around the time of my due date. And some asked what I'd been up to, why I'd been gone so long.

How do I answer that?

Not much, just a little mental breakdown
None of your beeswax (said politely, of course)
Well, see it all started with a scarcity of the neurotransmitter seratonin
Doesn't everyone leave shul for months at a time?
I overslept
I gave it up for Lent (a good friend reminds me it's the wrong time of year for that--she finds my ignorance of Christian rituals quite amusing)

I shrugged. I smiled. And then I asked about them. It works almost every time.

One person came up to me during kiddush and said quietly in my ear, I don't mean to out you but I've heard you've been dealing with depression. I've dealt with it too. A lot. Anytime you want to talk, I'm here.

I didn't know how to take that. Did that mean this person wanted to talk? Or was just offering to be on my safe list? What if when I was feeling fragile, they were too? I'm still not sure.

But then as I was talking to my rabbi it all fell apart. I couldn't keep past hurts from intruding on the present and some of them were making me gun-shy. So he encouraged me to tell him what these hurts were. I hesitated.

I don't want to turn this into Let's Bash the Shul or Let's Bash the Rabbi Day, I said. No, no no, he said. This wasn't about him, or the shul. This was about why I felt hurt. So I told him and with it came the tears.

And then he was very quiet and I feared I'd stepped over some invisible line. It was one of those times I wish life had an Undo button. I felt horrible.

Then he said, you take your responsibility to the shul very seriously. I nodded. Yes, of course, the shul means a lot to me. Doesn't everyone feel this way?

He shook his head, inhaled sharply, paused, and said no. And then he said, "you have an overly heightened sense of responsibility. I suspect, from everything I know about you, that you developed it very early as a coping skill, because otherwise there would have been too much pain to endure, and without it you probably wouldn't have survived."

I didn't know what to say. I nodded silently, tears unchecked. This rabbi, this man, didn't just get it. He had Seen me.

There was pain low in my stomach, as if something shifted in the core of my being. He had managed to do what few people in this world have done. He had truly Seen me without judgment or labels or an agenda to "fix" me. We both knew it. And I was grateful.

And then, of course, we were out of time. He asked if I was free to meet again on such-and-such day. I pulled out my PDA and brought up my calendar. Yes.

Doesn't that thing make you more anxious? he asked. Always knowing everything that's coming up?

I was surprised. No, I said. It makes me less anxious because I can look at it and say here's the appointments for tomorrow, I've got notes for this meeting, nothing needed for that one, it's not my turn to bring snack, good, I'm prepared and I can relax.

That's where we differ, he said. Knowing everything that was coming up would make him very anxious. The only way he could relax was having no clue what the next day would bring. Neither one of us saw the need to go into the pros and cons of that approach.

I started to put our next meeting in my calendar, accidentally selected the wrong time, and took a moment to fix it. "Rabbi" he said helpfully.

I laughed and said, cute. Then he told me about this training seminar he'd gone to about conducting hostage negotiations. The part of my brain that censors what I say--especially to my rabbi--had apparently shorted out and I heard myself ask slowly, do you find you need to do a lot of hostage negotiations in your rabbinate? He got up and said, you never know.

We'd meet again in a week and I had no idea what we were going to talk about.

The rabbi, the gabbai, and sobbing in the bathroom

2007-12-23T19:09:00.000-05:00

The last time I wrote about seeing my rabbi, it was October. We met again ten days later. And then again after a week, and when that meeting was unexpectedly cut short, three days after that.

So much happened in those brief 45-minute sessions that I am still not certain I can put words to it all. I think in a lot of ways we both dropped our shields. A bit.

Let me start at the beginning.

In October, I had an agenda when I met with him. I wanted him on my "team," someone to talk to about all those Jewish questions my Christian counselor is intrigued by but can't answer, someone to help me navigate the emotional land mines that come with the interaction and interdependence of community through shul. My plan was to keep to the present, set aside more than a dozen years of shul-related (though not always--or even often--rabbi-related) hurts, and try to rebuild my trust in him.

When we arranged for the second meeting, he told me to come just to "talk about this" some more. It wasn't the time or place for questions, so I began our second meeting by asking, which "this" are we supposed to be talking about?

"This" was re-entry into shul. Why, I asked. Why does there need to be re-entry? Why can't we pick up where we left off? Why can't we pretend the last few months--or in my case, maybe the last year--haven't happened?

Yet I'd answered my own question just the Shabbos before, when I went to help another woman and we got our signals crossed and I thought I'd done something horrible and as much as I tried to stop it, I wound up sobbing in the restroom again, silencing my cries every time a woman came in, so she'd never know.

I did talk to her that Shabbos and we cleared everything up and neither of us had done anything horrible. I related the story to my rabbi at that second meeting, feeling as though I was admitting to some unforgivable sin when I told him about seeking refuge--not for the first time--in the restroom.

In return, he told me that he'd had a run-in with the gabbai at about the same time that day, wanting to get across to the gabbai that those who were coming up for honors during the bar mitzvah needed better cues on what to do when. But wanting brevity over verbiage, what came out was "work with me, here." The gabbai shot something back and it was apparently rather tense for a while until they worked it out after services, and now he says they're best friends again (I don't take that literally).

But the point he said he wanted to make with this story was that we all get our signals mixed up sometimes. It was the heightened emotional state I was already in, being back in shul after being away so long, that tipped the scales toward my needing the bathroom refuge.

On top of which, he added, my self-censure about even being heard crying in the bathroom only increased the stress and made it that much harder to find relief. Instead, he wanted me to find someone. I told him about my (short) list of safe people, people who know what's going on with me, who know about the depression, the anxiety. He was glad to hear I had such a list, and then he told me to add him to it.

I wanted to cry right there. On the one hand, I was so relieved and grateful that he would say that, and on the other I didn't think I could do it, to come find him when I was moments away from completely losing it and bawling and tearing my hair out in the bathroom. Because I keep coming up against this same wall:

He. Has. More. Important. Things. To. Do.

In my more rational moments, I realize this is a self-esteem issue. I also realize this is a very deep issue because I have pulled out more than a dozen hairs as I am writing this and it started only three paragraphs ago.

My counselor has suggested that I try on a different perspective. What would I tell a friend who was about to go sob in the bathroom? Or what if I was the rabbi--would I want this person to come tell me?

I can argue against my telling faster than I can argue for it:

It's not his job
I already have a counselor
There are at least 1-200 other people here who want his attention
They might have bigger problems than I do
I cannot--will not--be seen as too needy
It's not something he can fix, anyway
I'm not always certain I'm worth it

And with that, the bathroom refuge is inevitable.

My new anti-anxiety kit

2007-12-18T14:44:00.000-05:00

It is amazing that after years of therapy, I am still learning things about myself. What I've learned recently, now that I am recognizing the signs of anxiety and the OCD features, is that I am a very tactile person. Touch is a primary way that I can ease the anxiety.

I learned that when my counselor suggested aromatherapy, to find a scent that would relax me, and all the scents I tried didn't do anything for me other than make me sneeze. But she got me thinking about what I do when I'm sitting and anxious.

I pick at things: skin, hair, scabs, cuticles, fuzz. I pull hair out, which I discovered is a diagnosis all by itself and part of the OCD spectrum called trichotillomania or TTM for short.

I'm attracted by textures. In fact sometimes I wish I could wear a tallit katan just so I could finger the knots in the tzitzit (fringes). A friend suggested worry beads but my first reaction was that it would be mistaken for a rosary!

So I went on a scavenger hunt around home and started collecting things in an old small sewing box:

satin binding from a childhood blanket
set of four 1-inch ball bearings, to manipulate in my hand
palm-sized smooth stone
pair of strong magnets to play with
hand-held bathing brush with bristles on one side and pumice stone on the other
Koosh ball
Rubik's Cube
and to top it off, hand lotion in a Eucalyptus/Spearmint scent that I can massage my hands with

Then for Chanuka my husband gave me a home manicure set from Israel, with Dead Sea minerals (or so it says). I tried it on one nail and it's smooth and shiny like I polished it and lately I've been rubbing it instead of picking at hair.

My counselor thinks it is great that my answers to anxiety are things that are self-care. I fear becoming vain or superficial, yet at the same time these things are allowing some of my hair to grow back.

While I don't usually like labels because I think they often are unhelpful, having a diagnosis to help me understand why I do what I do--when I'm not thinking about what I'm doing--has been very helpful. Finally I can stop fearing the manic episode that has never come and work on finding ways to deal with and tame my anxiety before it turns into depression.

At least life isn't boring

2007-12-03T14:31:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I don't want to write. I am home sick today, my children taken care of, sitting in bed with my computer. For hours my mind has been going over and over the events of the past few months. I want to share but the thought of writing it all down leaves me exhausted.

I think I will have to break this down into different topics. It is overwhelming otherwise. I want to share about

my several recent meetings with my rabbi
follow-up to the baby party I helped plan post-miscarriage
attending a Jewish mental health conference
treatment update and losing a provider
my new anti-anxiety kit
reintegration at shul
fears about repeating last winter
the struggle for sleep and what to do about dream interpretation (aka Where is Yosef When You Need Him?)
safe places, safe people, and using my safety plan for the first time in public
psychology, introspection and Shabbat Musaf

For now some more tea, a nap, and I hope to be back shortly to begin.

Reaching out to heal

2007-10-23T14:42:00.000-05:00

There is much to tell but today I am very tired, so I will only begin.

I saw my rabbi last week, thankfully. I wanted to be strong and in control but even on the way to meet him I was in tears. This recent downturn since the end of September has been hard though the increase in meds helps and I'm sleeping better and I've been through much, much harder. But it has kept me away from shul. Lately it has brought up too much pain, too much remembering of how it feels to be Unseen and not valued.

I know that my perspective is skewed at the moment, that the painful events feel closer and more painful than they do when I'm feeling strong and happy. I even said as much to him.

My rabbi said two things that really stuck with me. One was that he would do everything he could to prevent and help heal such painful experiences related to the shul, short of embarrassing me. I am glad and relieved that he wants to make this about the shul, not about me. I know that I am not the only one in the congregation battling depression and it would be grossly unfair for me to receive validation while others continue to remain Unseen.

The other was that he wants me to help him--and the shul by extension--learn how to help me and others like me. Already I had an idea. It is not unusual to train congregants on the mitzvah of bikkur cholim, visiting the sick. In my area it has been focused on hospital and nursing home visits. But why could we not expand it a bit to include people we see in shul, at work, friends, who are in pain?

The thing I hear most often here on the blog and in person conversations is that people don't know what to say, how to act, so they say and do nothing.

Why can we not teach people a range of things to say and do? The question or offer that helps me might not help another, but if there is a larger range to choose from, adaptable to the situation and the people involved, it would be a starting point. It would open a door that has remained closed for too long.

As if on some divine cue, I received today an invitation to join a committee at shul to study and make recommendations on inclusion. While inclusion is often used in terms of physical, developmental and learning disabilities, there is no reason it should not also include brain disorders such as depression, anxiety, bipolar, and others. Ours is often a hidden illness, but
by nature, these disorders make it hard--even impossible--for people going through an episode to reach out, get involved, or even to come to shul.

Shul should be a place that people can bring their confusion and fear and pain, a place that should be free of stigma for what we know is a biological medical brain illness, a place where those who are able can be there for those who are not, knowing that which end of the need spectrum we're on can change.

I went to another Jewish mental health conference, too. I wrote about last year's conference and I'm relieved that this year's was much, much better. I want to write more about that, too, but today I must take it slow and save my energy.

It's back

2007-10-01T22:17:00.000-05:00

This year I had questions I've never had before. I wanted to run from Rosh Hashanah, hide from Yom Kippur. And now the old feelings have crept back into my life and as much as I try to stand strong against them, I have had to increase my meds and I still fight anxiety that several times a day is nearly debilitating.

On New Year's Day the decree is inscribed and on the Day of Atonement it is sealed; how many shall pass away and how many shall be born; who shall live and who shall die...

Is this why my baby daughter died four months ago? Did I not pray hard enough last year?

It's a question my counselor would say is ridiculous. G-d doesn't work that way. Yet here it is. In writing. We daven it. Do we say the words but not mean them? Or do we mean them and if we do, how do I take them? When does prayer move from metaphor to the literal?

I visited my baby's grave site twice during the ten days. Two friends who had wanted to be with me when she was buried, I took them each separately and we paid our respects. I could not cry.

...who shall have rest and who shall go wandering; who shall be tranquil and who shall be disturbed; who shall be at ease and who shall be afflicted...

The question comes naturally, is my depression, my panic attacks, my distorted lens through which I see the world the result of some divine decree? If I were a better Jew, would I get past this? And what would that mean? Whose definition of a better Jew?

How can I do teshuva more than I can do it? How can I give tzedaka more than I can give it? Can I possibly pray harder than I can pray?

There are some who would of course say yes. There are those who claim the Shoah happened because Jews were not religious enough. Without a doubt they would blame my illness on my failings. But theirs is not the voice I want to hear. Extremism is never the answer, no matter what the question.

Would it make any difference if I did my own Vidui?

I have raised my voice to my children; I have raised my voice to the heavens and doubted I would get an answer; I have lost faith in humanity when reading the news; I have lost faith in G-d when my depression tosses me into the depths; I have blamed others for not doing enough to help; I have blamed
G-d for giving me this challenge in the first place; I have berated myself for all the weaknesses my illness makes acute; I have berated myself for not being stronger...

It didn't even wait until October. I saw the first signs nearly a week ago. The red flags, the things that alert me to another onset of anxiety and depression, they started coming quickly and went from nonexistent to frequent in 24 hours. On the third day, I increased my meds from 30mg to 40mg. I see my counselor and the psychiatrist's assitant this week.

I gave my rabbi two weeks worth of available times when we could meet again, but I have not heard from him. I fear he is angry with me or disappointed because I could not face the crowds at shul. I could not stay. That may have been the first red flag and I missed it.

I noticed it when the first signs of hoplessness returned, the sense of being overwhelmed, of fearing attack from every side. Every e-mail, every phone call, every knock at the door I fear is someone unhappy with me. I couldn't possibly confess enough to satisfy the yetser hara's depression inside of me.

This is not how I wanted to start the year. On New Year's Day the decree is inscribed and on the Day of Atonement it is sealed. Have I already been assigned some horrible fate because of my anxiety over the Days of Awe? Has my next baby's death warrant been signed (G-d forbid) because of my depression's timing?

I don't know how to come to terms with the liturgy. I have no answers.

Reflections on a year

2007-09-12T14:45:00.000-05:00

I am still just so amazed and humbled by those of you who have come to read here. I never honestly thought that a blog about coping with anxiety and depression would be all that interesting but I am grateful you all are here and I am grateful that I can be helpful in whatever way.

I wish I could thank all of you by name, to acknowledge how much I appreciate your visits. This blog has been an enormous help to me, just to say things I can't say anywhere else, to express depression in a way I've never been able to express it before, and to get reality checks from all of you. I pray that the new year will be far happier than this one has been though I realize that even in tragedy and sorrow, this year has had its gifts.

May we all find our gifts and look forward to increased happiness. Shanah tovah.

To sleep, perchance to dream

2007-09-06T22:23:00.000-05:00

Life is--do I dare say it?--going well.

I had my first counseling appointment without children. They were both in school. It was strange to not be interrupted every few minutes.

My sleep is continuing to be a problem, but it is improving. The psychiatrist's assistant has had me try both Ambien (worked too well) and Rozerem (didn't work at all) and each time I keep going back to Lunesta. It's taken weeks, but now at 2mg of Lunesta a night, I'm finally sleeping through the night without waking for an hour or more in the middle.

I am told this is common with many of the SSRI antidepressants, that they work well on mood but disrupt sleep, causing some people to sleep much lighter. This is exactly what I found. On the higher (for me) dose of 30mg Prozac I've been on since losing my baby in May, my sleep has gotten worse.

But now with the Lunesta, more than the number of hours a night I'm sleeping, the most wonderful, baruch HaShem, thing has happened: I am dreaming again.

Really interesting dreams, intriguing dreams, fascinating dreams. Not nightmares.

It gives me a reason, finally, to look forward to the darkness of night.

Done and yet just beginning

2007-08-16T20:44:00.000-05:00

I had my meeting with my rabbi. It was very good. He will help me.

He said this was the month to do this, to get my team together, to look ahead proactively. I think it is no accident that I should first talk to him about this at the beginning of Elul. Even when the world around me is ignorant of the Jewish calendar, something inside me is well aware of it and embraces it. It becomes my inner time.

My psychiatrist's assistant had said two of the things I should ask for are my rabbi's support and his understanding of what I go through. In fact, in my first post on what I'd want my rabbi to know, I said I wanted him to understand me, to understand my disorder.

I started to tell him about what depression feels like to me, the things I listed in my post about depression as adversary. I fear I was not doing a very good job at first, and then he said he throught of depression as attacking one's sense of legitimacy to simply be. It is a relief to know he understands. Only someone who understood could say that.

I told him I was not looking for therapy from him. I said only some things needed problem solving. Some of it I just felt a strong need to share and I had nowhere else to take it. Some of it involved shul and it seemed inappropriate to take it anywhere but to him.

My anxiety is a different issue and it sometimes stands in my way even when the depression does not. We talked about it a little bit. I feel I have a little clearer view of what is real and what is perceived. We will meet again just after the holidays and I feel reassured by that. I feel like I don't have to do this all alone.

My family has been invited to Shabbos dinner at a friend's house tomorrow. I feel so moved by that. It has been a year or more since we were invited anywhere for Shabbos. I have to try hard not to think of the past eight months, but to think of the promise for what the future holds, what tomorrow may bring.

The day has worn me out so please forgive me for any omissions. Adequate sleep is still a need I haven't yet met.

Giving until it hurts

2007-08-15T10:01:00.000-05:00

As most of you know, my beautiful baby girl, may her memory be only for a blessing, died halfway through my pregnancy in May of this year. As many of you know, I have a small group of local women friends who are all moms of young children, though I am the only Jew.

These two facts are important to bear in mind during this post.

For lots of reasons, I am opposed to baby showers. In my case, for instance, had I had a shower just before finding out my baby had died? Or had to come home to a decorated nursery with empty arms? That pain can be avoided in most, but admittedly not all, situations. In a way I was fortunate; except for the memory book of the all too short time with our daughter and the pile of now unused maternity clothes, everything looks pretty much the same. (There are a few exceptions--a painted porch and a garden--but they are not important to this post.)

However, the mom friends I have wanted to have a party to celebrate the fact that there are so many babies being born among our friends. Five moms, me among them, were due between July and October. Now there are four.

Despite wanting to have a party--more a celebration of new life than a baby shower, I was assured--few were willing to volunteer to plan it. Isn't that the way it always is?

I didn't want to seem the resentful mom, especially because I never felt resentment toward the other pregnant moms. In fact, I struggled with my own fears for their babies' safety and safe deliveries. And I worried the moms would not want to be around me because it would remind them that pregnancy is risky and what happened to me could happen to them, too.

So I volunteered to help plan it. Now I am one of only three who are doing nearly all the work for a party early next week and I am conflicted.

I feel sad. The wounds of last May are being tugged at, scratched, irritated, and some I fear are beginning to weep. I was supposed to be pregnant at this party. I was supposed to be expecting my own baby in just over a month. G-d had other plans.

Yet it is hard for me to help plan a party celebrating new life when I so recently lost the new life I'd nurtured. We still hope, b'ezrat HaShem, to get pregnant again. But it is still too soon for that.

I sense my emotions being stuffed away, tucked into a dark corner somewhere until they eventually emerge and cry out in the light of day. My sadness is under the surface but each day I feel ambivalence growing stronger. I am distracted, distant.

I want this party to be over so I don't have to think about it anymore. I want to simply not go, but that seems so selfish. My loss shouldn't diminish the joy at those lives that have already been born or, G-d willing, will soon be within our group. My absence would be felt more palpably than my presence.

And still it hurts.

Happy shul day

2007-08-14T22:33:00.000-05:00

I had a great day at shul this past Shabbos. Davening was meaningful. I didn't feel self-conscious. I was able to contribute in a small way to the morning. A woman I admire greatly greeted me with a hug and seemed genuinely pleased to see me. My children were even fairly well behaved.

More importantly, I didn't feel like I was on the outside looking in. At kiddush, I felt confident to initiate conversations. I didn't stutter as I often do when I'm anxious.

I even joked at one point that I'd learned life was easier when I recognized that I really didn't know everything. I was a tiny bit afraid people would respond with a negative, oh she thinks she's so special, but they didn't. They laughed, and it felt like laughing with me, not at me.

My meds are working. :) And maybe all the work I'm doing, hammering away at the way I perceive the world is helping too.

My appointment with the rabbi has been rescheduled for this week and while I am still a little nervous about what I'm going to say and how it will turn out, I am also trying to see things differently. Very differently. Partly because when he rescheduled our appointment, he was funny about it, too, and that didn't seem like the part of him I know. I have to remind myself that I see what he wishes to share, and what he's willing to share may change over time or as our rabbi-congregant relationship evolves.

More soon but tonight I am tired.

126 reasons to read Jewish blogs

2007-08-14T22:22:00.000-05:00

It is Tuesday already but it is still very worth pouring over Jack's presentation of Haveil Havalim, and I thank him very much for the link.

Credibility, expertise, authority, esteem, respect--what am I looking for?

2007-08-09T11:22:00.000-05:00

I decided to write about this because it's on my mind a lot and because it's been an issue for a long time, yet one I've rarely ever talked about.

I wrote just a bit ago about who is the expert on fringe Jews. I am interested in what others think about that. Do you go to the source to understand an issue, or do you trust the doctor who has studied it but never known it with the intimacy the source has? Or is it that the topic of mental illness in general automatically discredits anyone with one?

But this is part of a larger issue. RWAC wrote in a comment on one of his posts that "people with titles are taken seriously - and it makes sense that someone who has put in the time to study and work in a given field should be taken seriously, until proven unworthy. But at the same time, people who don't have the degrees should still be taken seriously, to whatever degree they have expertise and are able to communicate it."

This seems like complete, respectful, common sense to me. If everyone practiced this, there would be a lot fewer people who feel invalidated in this world.

That said, I'm still not quite sure what I'm looking for. This all came about because I felt that being female and title-less restricted me from accomplishing much of anything other than birthing and raising Jewish children.

But that's not exactly true either. I said I didn't have a title or initials after my name, but I do, technically. I just don't have the sort of initials to put after my name that wouldn't look pretentious. I have earned several degrees, though none of them in Jewish topics. I can't explain further without compromising myself, but the feeling I get in my community is that unless I hold specifically a PhD, JD, MD or semicha, none of the rest of it matters. And I don't have any of those four, for all sorts of obvious and not so obvious reasons.

At the same time, I can't help but think that the loudest most powerful force standing in my way is me, though I do not believe the entire problem resides in my head. My own lack of confidence, my hesitation in thinking I could be helpful to anyone at the very same time I want to be helpful with what I know and have learned and experienced, my fear of ever being anything close to arrogant.

My counselor thinks that I could allow myself a little arrogance, that my boundaries against that are so strong and so far out that what would seem to me to be slightly arrogant (in myself) would likely appear to everyone else as simply self-confident. That scares me a bit but I'm working on it.

Meanwhile I feel ineffective. Unheard, unseen, not taken seriously, without credibility despite initials I've earned and experiences I've lived, something.

I can't be the only one. Can I? Do others ever feel like this? What do you do? How do you deal with it?

And so it begins

2007-08-07T14:30:00.000-05:00

I had an appointment with my rabbi for this week. I arranged for child care so I could meet with him uninterrupted. I was nervous, but as I wrote earlier, I am jaded when it comes to appointments with the rabbi. I usually don't expect it will actually happen until it's already underway, and even then I expect it to be interrupted by something.

And so it has happened again.

It's not anyone's fault. A funeral had to be scheduled and that takes precedence. He told me he needed to reschedule but gave no indication of when that might take place. I guess I will wait until a day or so after the funeral and contact him again. After the second rescheduling is historically when I have given up.

I understand--more than many readers may think--that this is how it is. There are life cycle events that fall under a narrow time contstraint. Babies are born and if a boy, the bris is set. Sadly, people die and the funeral cannot wait, nor should it.

At the same time, it is one more rescheduling that makes me wonder if we will get to meet at all before he is too busy with the Yamim Nora'im and before my own depression cycle starts again.

This should not further wound the trust I have that he will follow through, yet it does. If it were only the occasional disappointment, it would be easier to take, but it is not. It happens almost every single time.

I know it is not me. I have talked to others who have difficulty getting in to see him. One woman joked that he is improving and now keeps a full third of the appointments he schedules. So I don't take it personally. Yet it's still a disappointment. Each rescheduling, especially when I have to fight for it, makes it harder the next time I need to reach out.

Answer: a)Not enough sex; b)Too much sex; c)What's sex?

2007-08-06T14:26:00.000-05:00

Yehuda has this week's Haveil Havalim on his blog and said that depression is "something that even sex can't always help you with."

I agree, from experience. Endorphins only go so far. And unfortunately for otherwise happily married couples, depression kills all desire. It can be a strain on a healthy marriage.

But Yehuda's post is very much tongue in cheek, which is probably better than tongue in other places, and I'm not feeling altogether capable of being funny right now, so I will leave it at that.

Note: I just saw how the original title of this post showed up on the links to Yehuda's post and it looked to me like I was being very judgmental or critical, neither of which I intend, so I'm changing the title and hoping it will come across better.

Who is the real expert on fringe Jews?

2007-08-03T13:25:00.000-05:00

I have an appointment with my rabbi for next week.

I am scared.

The problem is that I can't trust what's in my head. I can't trust my emotions. My counselor has observed this, too, saying that I can't approach situations from a purely emotional stand. I have to go back to the facts, to what I know is real.

Sometimes, though, it is hard to differentiate between what is my interpretation of what I see around me and what is actually real. It is particularly hard when it concerns me.

There is a woman at my shul who has a child with a fairly severe disability. There is little hope for this child to successfully navigate any sort of shul-offered children's programming or bar mitzvah studies without individual and long-term assistance, such as a personal tutor. This woman has been an advocate for children with disabilities and their parents since her own child was diagnosed shortly after birth. Not one visible change has been made to the children's programming. No tutoring has been offered. This woman cannot enjoy Shabbos at shul because she is spending every moment assisting her child. She told me in tears that she is considering leaving the shul because it seems blind and deaf to her needs.

Not long after she told me this, another woman, a medical doctor who has children of her own but none with a diagnosed disability, spoke up at shul on behalf of children with disabilities and how to integrate them better within shul programming. Suddenly the board was interested. A committee was formed to study the issue.

When I discretely asked why no one was interested when the mother spoke but were after the doctor spoke, I was told that the disabled child's mother was seen as too close to the issue and as such, was too emotional to be trusted. Yet the doctor, being a doctor and not having any children with disabilities, was an impartial, trusted source. Now they could listen.

By this logic, I am too close to the issue of depression. I am too emotional to be trusted. Even though I know my depression inside and out and can usually find words to express what's going on. Even though I have perhaps identified some of the problems--lack of communication, insufficient community education--and proposed solutions that would accommodate a medium-sized shul with an overworked rabbi and a strapped budget.

Certainly, it would be nice to make a difference for me, to find the Jewish support I need. But that is not enough. There are far too many others, such as this woman with the child with the disability, such as Rabbi WAC's Fringe Jews, who are not finding support either. Someone needs to speak up for them. If that responsibility falls to me, I will accept it and do the best I can.

But how can I provide insight or guidance or be effective in any way if I can be written off as too close to the issue, too emotional, or worse yet, just another of the mentally ill?

It would seem to me that, having lived with this illness for most of my life, I would be something of an expert on it. Yet expertise is not something I can attribute to myself if it is not corroborated by others, is it? Can a teacher really call himself a teacher if he has no students?

And even if I could attribute expertise to myself, how does that have any impact on those many who will only listen if the speaker is objective, rational, and preferably has formal, post-graduate level training on the topic?

Or maybe my feeling ineffective and powerless is all coming from within, a product of the very illness I feel ineffective speaking about.

Too many questions for this erev Shabbos. I'm going to go braid the challah.

Promise fulfilled but still waiting

2007-08-02T16:06:00.000-05:00

I contacted my rabbi today and left a message. I have not yet heard back but it is early yet.

I agonized over what to say, how to say it. How much do I say? How little? I found myself using words like, if it is at all possible, and, is there any way.

My husband says I do this routinely, asking for a favor instead of asking for what I want. He says what I project is a sense that I am not worthy of asking you for this terrible imposition so I will request it as a favor and if you deny it I will completely understand since I am not worthy to be asking in the first place.

I did not know I do that, but once my husband pointed it out, I saw it very well in what I originally planned to say to my rabbi. I had built in escapes for his benefit and at my expense.

I didn't think my self esteem was quite that low. I thought I had made much more progress.

I hope that this projection of not being worthy is not the reason behind my not finding or receiving the support I need, or even why my suggestions for ways to help provide others with support are brushed aside.

I wonder if I can fix this before I meet with my rabbi, if I really do get to meet with him. Would that really make a difference?

Gathering strength and information: why is contacting the rabbi so scary?

2007-08-01T16:23:00.000-05:00

I saw my regular counselor today and I told her of my dream and what my PA said yesterday. I also told her what I posted yesterday and what readers had commented and specifically Rabbi WAC's suggestions. She really liked the team approach.

The team approach is basically this. The biggest responsibility is mine. I have to speak up about what is going on in my head, my heart, my soul. I have to tell appropriate people about when things are good, when I'm concerned, side effects, thought patterns that don't seem right. I have to ask for reality checks and be as accurate as possible in my descriptions of how I'm doing. To not downplay what's going on. I have to be diligent about taking my meds, exercising daily, getting enough sleep, pursuing stress reduction as needed.

The next one in line is my husband. He sees me every day and might notice something I'm missing. He might catch inconsistencies between my words and behavior, or sense that something is just off. He will ask me about it, and using his discretion, may or may not make sure someone else on the team knows about it, too.

My psychiatrist's assistant (PA)/counselor will handle the medication aspect. Do we need to adjust meds, add something, scale it back, try something different, all this is her area of expertise.

My regular counselor will handle most of my other issues: ongoing relationship with my mom, parenting my children, anxieties, negative self-talk, coping with depression, social anxiety, high self-expectations, and so on.

The last ring is the one I'm uncertain of. That's my rabbi. I would like very much for him to be part of the team. I want very much not to be afraid of that, too. I want him to be available to handle my religious and spiritual concerns, issues around and in shul. He sees me most every Shabbat. We have a history together, for over a dozen years. He has played a very important role in my life. I'd like that to continue. I'd like to have someone to take my religious and spiritual concerns to, because right now no one is there to offer Jewish answers.

Many years ago, a psychiatrist told me I needed to focus on both aspects of my life in order to get better: physical and emotional.

Not two, I told him. Not both aspects. There are five: physical, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual. All five need attention. I was under his care when I began my formal conversion studies. Shortly after my conversion and just before he left the clinic, he began researching and then publishing articles in psychiatric journals on the importance of spirituality to psychiatric healing. It would be nice to think maybe I helped a bit with that, though I'm not sure.

At any rate, only four of the five are getting attention now. I need to follow my own advice and see to that fifth.

One concern my counselor raised was that my rabbi might not be the right person for this. She suggested that I ask him outright, after explaining what I need from him, is this something you can provide? If not, that's okay, just please refer me to someone--perhaps another rabbi--who can.

She is concerned that he might be stretched too thin, too distracted, focused on too many other areas. She was certain that my falling through the cracks is not intentional on his part (I am certain of this, too), but that there is the possibility I am looking for support in the wrong place.

I'm not ready to say that, yet. I haven't ever before asked him for regular, ongoing support. I want to give him that chance.

She said I should have a full year of regular support from him before I bring up past issues. My relationship with my rabbi is not broken but it is wounded. It needs time to heal, she said. I can do that.

She also said that she is concerned that the sometimes lack of follow-through issue is sort of like intermittent positive reinforcement. That is, sometimes I get the reward of a meeting with him. It is the type of reinforcement of slot machines and it is dangerous for me because it keeps me hanging onto a relationship that may or may not be healthy for me.

But she is optimistic that it might work. I did, at any rate, promise her I would contact my rabbi and ask to schedule a meeting with him. I would do my part to see this happen. Then it is up to him.

The power of prayer: is it time to come clean with the rabbi?

2007-07-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

I wrote recently,
I had a dream the other night about having a meeting with my counselor and my rabbi and my husband and me. Sort of like a team approach to helping me cope when things are bad, and even when things are okay, or dare I say, good. But then I am back to what is appropriate to ask for.
I cannot stop thinking about this idea of a team approach. At the same time I know it cannot be done as I dreamt it, for logistical reasons. I began thinking about how I could achieve the same effect without us all in the same room.

Today I saw the psychiatrist's assistant for my monthly check-in. My meds continue to work at 30 mg/day. My anxiety is minimal and related to actual stressors. There is still no hint of mania, reinforcing their decision to scrap the bipolar diagnosis. My only problem is sleep disturbance. I continue to wake for 1-2 hours in the middle of the night. Lunesta is not working to keep me asleep and I risk morning panic attacks. She prescribed Ambien for me to see if it will help. I have been managing on about 5 hours of sleep a night for the past month.

I decided to ask her what she thought would be appropriate to ask the rabbi for. When he asks, what can we do, how should I answer? Especially knowing that October and the next major depression cycle is looming.

Ah, she said, pastoral care can be very important. She approved that I was asking now, before things got bad. She did say that the worse October/January depressions were almost certainly Seasonal Affective Disorder. She said exercise and being outside, getting even a little sunlight, would be extremely important for me. We might need to increase my meds during the winter, she said. I might have to wait until spring to try and get pregnant again, since she believes the increase in meds carries an increased risk of miscarriage.

She said what I should tell the rabbi is that I need his support. That I need him to understand what I'm going through, that the depression and anxiety may be lessened by medication but would likely never go away completely. That I may have to deal with this for the rest of my life. She said I should ask him for healing prayers, that I should not underestimate the power of prayer. I had to smile at that. She does not know about this blog.

I asked her if there were tangible, specific things I should ask him for and she said yes. Because shul is so important to me, because my depression and anxiety attack my Jewish identity, I should ask to meet with him regularly a few times a year, preferably before the anticipated depressive cycles. Just to check in. Just to see how things are going, how I am coping in shul, if there are things I feel I need while I am there.

Her answer helped but it scared me too. It scared me because it means I would have to be more honest with him. I'd have to be more open with him.

I might have to tell him about this blog.

I'd have to tell him that explaining my depression by using a 2000-year-old Talmudic theological world view makes more sense to me than any modern medical or psychiatric description.

I'd have to tell him that I have difficulty trusting him.

I'd have to tell him about the hurt that continues to accumulate.

I'd have to tell him about periodically feeling Unseen.

I'd have to tell him about how my illness affects my perceptions and social interactions with others at shul.

I'd have to tell him that I see quite plainly others' demands on his time, his energy, his attention. I'd have to tell him how my problems seem insignificant in comparison to others who need him, and how that leads me to not even ask in the first place. How I don't want to add to the demand.

I'd have to tell him that even telling him all this is risky because there is a precedent for lack of support within our shul, that even he does not always follow through.

I'd have to tell him that when we do meet and talk, it means the world to me, but it also raises my hopes and I can't always afford to do that.

I don't know if I can do it, tell him all that.

I'm afraid of hurting him. I'm afraid of criticizing him. I'm afraid of destroying whatever relationship we currently have.

I'm afraid of his reaction, that he'd be angry with me, whether it was for keeping all this from him all this time or for feeling it in the first place.

I'm afraid of being so vulnerable when I'm half-expecting that any meeting with him will result in my getting hurt, if the meeting even happens in the first place.

I don't know if I would be opening the door to more pain or opening the door to a more complete healing.

...for the sin which we have committed before Thee in speech; ...and for the sin which we have committed before Thee in presumption or in error...

Good news better news best news

2007-07-29T20:24:00.000-05:00

I am so tired tonight but I wanted to write about the good things that have happened or are happening here. It is a wonderful feeling to know that good things are going on, even as there are pockets of sadness and grief around me.

My neighbor's 16-year-old Akita, one of the gentlest dogs I've ever met, died today. We are sad for their family and ours--we'll miss him too--yet for the first time, I don't feel my own happiness over recent good tidings diminished.

The first bit of very good news is that we did receive the financial aid we asked for. This is an incredible relief. We try to make ends meet on one salary and my husband is certainly not a highly paid doctor or lawyer or similar professional. But I am so pleased that we can still provide a Jewish education for our children. It is so important to me that they have this strong start, this confident identity as they begin their school careers.

The second bit of good news is that I am gaining some perspective on the rabbi issue. I have not seen him in weeks and this is okay with me. I think that perhaps I need to be very, very, very direct with him. I think perhaps I was expecting him to have a greater sensitivity or a more perceptive sense of people than perhaps he really has.

I think I need to decide if I'm going to continue to fall through the cracks or not, and if not, then I have to make myself visible and heard. If he offers to give me a referral list of Jewish counselors, then I need to ask him exactly when he might have that for me. I think I need to pin him down, metaphorically speaking. I think I need to think in terms of tasks and deadlines with him.

I also think I need to figure out exactly what I need from him, from shul, from my shul community. October is coming fast and I need to prepare for the inevitable downturn that will accompany it. There is the possibility that it won't be so bad this year, but in 22 years it has been hard, so I expect the worst and hope for the best.

Meanwhile my painting art therapy is going well and almost complete. I will have a whole new room within a week or two. I love to go out there now and just enjoy the colors and looking out the windows. I think when it is finished, it would be a nice place to daven.

So this is maybe my homework. My rabbi often invites people to come see him before he is too overwhelmed preparing for the High Holy Days, to talk about the past year or what they envision for the coming one. If I can figure out exactly what I need from him and from the shul, what do I need when I walk into the building on Shabbat or a holiday or whenever, then I can meet with him and tell him. I might even take relevant parts of What would I want my rabbi to know Part I and bring them with me.

I see my counselor this week. Maybe this is a good thing to work on. And yes, my high expectations. Those aren't going away any time soon I don't think, so they will be there to talk about. Ayelet is right that those often come from not being or feeling good enough. I know that feeling well. I grew up with it.

B'ezrat Hashem, I will have more good news on my other anxieties soon.

Anxious

2007-07-20T13:11:00.000-05:00

Anxiety takes a lot of energy. I should be fixing lunch for my children right now, then getting challah started so it will be ready in time for dinner tonight. Instead I am sitting here feeling exhausted and anxious and wishing only for sleep and an end to my anxiety.

This time I think my anxiety is really caused by real things happening in my life. I don't think it's all chemical but I acknowledge my brain chemistry might make it less tolerable than it would be for others.

We are awaiting a decision on financial aid for our children to attend the only Jewish day school around. If we do not get it, they will have to go to public school.

We have to refinance our house because our current mortgage is an adjustable-rate one and it adjusts big time next month.

We are facing an unlikely but still possible 10% wage cut.

So I am anxious. And Shabbat is nearly here again and the rabbi is back and I just have so many conflicting feelings about going back.

I had a dream the other night about having a meeting with my counselor and my rabbi and my husband and me. Sort of like a team approach to helping me cope when things are bad, and even when things are okay, or dare I say, good. But then I am back to what is appropriate to ask for. Maybe all I can regularly expect is for him to announce page numbers.

Just thinking about this I feel tears coming. It hurts so much and I've been so disappointed though there have been good times as well, and leaving just isn't an option. There aren't really any alternatives that are better.

I'm just so tired thinking about all of this. So I will go make my children and me some lunch and maybe that will energize me so I can make challah. (There is no place to go buy challah here today.)

I will be in shul tomorrow. Wish me strength--I may need it. Gut shabbos.

Rasslin with the rabbi issue

2007-07-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

I went to shul last Shabbat. I was horribly anxious but I knew I needed to go for me. As it turned out, the (shul) rabbi was not there and another rabbi who is usually a fellow congregant (and whom I like very much) was leading services. This helped a lot.

While I was there, I talked with another woman who knows the rabbi better than I do. While I did not go into detail about how I felt or my recent struggles, I did ask in a very roundabout way about the prominent member's comments regarding the rabbi's commitment to the individual's Jewish life.

She rolled her eyes at that and said something unrepeatable about shul politics. But the bottom line is that I should take what that member had to say with an entire jar of kosher salt. She then said that the (shul) rabbi is very understated in how he supports people. To him, a great deal is communicated through a handshake or a hand on one's shoulder or greeting someone with a smile rather than a scowl. He is not overt in his support, but that does not mean he is not supportive.

She also said that he shows his satisfaction or delight in what someone has learned or accomplished by asking them to do more of it or to take on a responsibility that would use their new knowledge. The fact that he has, on quite a few occasions, asked me to teach a class or lead a minyan or write something for the shul to distribute should be, she said, interpreted to mean he is quite pleased.

This helped me feel a lot better.

I talked to another friend about being visibly Jewish versus not, meaning something like when I wear my Magen David necklace versus when I don't. She laughed and said that I was always visibly Jewish and that even she (a non-Jew) could recognize Jewish values and ethics and my commitment to Jewish law in the words I chose and how I dress and how I raise my children and even the friends I choose. I didn't think it was that obvious. She thinks it is glaring but in a good way. When I told her about feeling like maybe I wasn't Jewish enough yet, she said that just wasn't possible.

My friend D called me after Shabbat and we talked for a while, too. D asked me how I was doing and how the medication was helping and about my anxiety, because that always shows up before the depression does. I told D about my anxiety around shul, around the rabbi, and D asked if any of the things I was afraid of had ever happened.

Once, I said. There is this woman at shul who, years ago, angrily told me that I'd never be truly Jewish because I'd converted. I was horrified then and a friend stepped in and defended me. But I never forgot it and that woman still glares at me when she sees me.

After saying this was clearly this woman's issues and not mine, D said if anyone at shul suggested something like that again, I should simply ask if they trust the rabbi, because if they do, accusing me is tantamount to questioning his judgment, since the rabbi is the one I learned with and he brought me before the beit din for my formal conversion. I felt not quite so alone then. I liked the idea of the rabbi's status backing up my claim to Jewishness.

D also suggested gently that much of my anxiety seemed to be as if others had very high expectations of me and I wasn't measuring up. When asked, I really couldn't point to anyone who has high expectations of me. Except me.

Might I be projecting my high expectations onto others, believing that's what they expect of me? Could this be a part of my anxiety? D knows this is certainly part of my history, my childhood. It is maybe a good topic to pick apart in therapy.

And then before I went to bed Saturday night, I picked up my book of Tehillim--Psalms--again. I thumbed through, skimming, and then stopped short. The words seemed to almost leap off the page at me.

Chapter 91:

4. With His wings He will cover you, and under His wings you will take refuge; His truth is an encompassing shield.
5. You will not fear the fright of night, the arrow that flies by day;
9. For you [said], "The Lord is my refuge"; the Most High you made your dwelling.
10. No harm will befall you, nor will a plague draw near to your tent.
11. For He will command His angels on your behalf to guard you in all your ways.
12. On [their] hands they will bear you, lest your foot stumble on a stone.

I hold onto this, the words of my friends, and the support for this blog. And I hold tight to my belief and trust in G-d, because that is my center and my foundation.

What would I want my rabbi to know? Part II

2007-07-10T17:21:00.000-05:00

I wrote about this first six months ago in I cried at shul and then in Shul, and of course I wrote about it in What would I want my rabbi to know? Part 1.

I'm still dealing with it. And I still have no answers.

I'm not even sure I have questions and maybe that's part of the problem. Back in Part 1, I wrote

I wish I could just schedule an appointment and tell him all this. Tell him what I need. But I don't trust that what I want, what I think I need, what I wrote at the top of this post, is appropriate.

I know that I have to ask. I know that I need to voice what I need. I know that the more specific I can be, the better. But I'm stuck on the appropriateness.

Is what I want from my rabbi something that would fall in his job description, so to speak, or am I looking for what I need in the wrong place?

I want to trust him. I want to trust that when he says he'll do something, he does. Right now that doesn't exist. Sometimes he follows through and sometimes he doesn't, and I never know which it will be. Last winter, he offered to give me some referrals to Jewish counselors for the religious piece of my depression and I said yes that would be very nice, but then nothing happened. And I got worse before I got better and it seemed pointless to ask later.

Besides, I was afraid that asking again, or bringing up that he'd offered, would be taken as a criticism of him. I can see that happening all too well. I think it's realistic. And I know for a fact that he hates criticism.

I want to understand how to reconcile being Jewish and living with depression. I talked with a friend today who remarked how the Scandinavian trait of holding one's emotions in was so foreign to Jewish culture. Yet it's not okay to be open about depression in Jewish culture either. So which is it? How open can I be? Should I be? Can I be any more honest with other Jews than I can with everyone else?

I don't know if these are questions a rabbi can help me answer. I only know that I don't have the answer and am not qualified to answer them.

I want to feel like I matter to the shul, like I help make a difference, like I contribute in some way to the congregation.

I want to feel like he'd notice if I stopped coming to shul. I want to feel like he'd care whether I disappeared off the face of the earth or not. The last time I saw him was when I said Kaddish the first Shabbat after my baby daughter's burial at the end of May. I haven't been able to get up my courage to go to shul since. I miss it horribly but it is too hard to go. It is the one place where I am forced to confront myself, my pain, my anxieties, my resentments, my hopes, my fears.

When I talked with him after shul at the end of January (in I cried at shul), I told him that having this illness somehow makes me feel less Jewish. He rolled his eyes, clearly dismissing that as an absurd idea. I've also written in that same post that my depression makes me just feel less.

I want to feel like I've learned enough about Judaism in the past twelve years of off-and-on formal learning and twenty-three-plus years of informal learning to be considered--by him--as reasonably knowledgeable for a lay person. Like I finally qualify to really be called Jewish. Like I earned the trust he placed in me when he brought me before the beit din at my conversion.

I want to feel like I really belong, that I'm not still an outsider looking in. I want to feel like I can and should stop questioning my authenticity as a Jew. I want to feel like I'm good enough.

Two years ago I came up with an interpretation of the Four Children in the Passover haggadah that really excited me. I told my rabbi about it, explaining my interpretation. He said he'd never heard anything like it before, but he liked it a lot. He asked me to write up what I'd just explained to him and the shul would include it in the Pesach handouts they make available each year. But I didn't trust it would actually happen and I didn't want to deal with the letdown of submitting it only to have it left out, so I didn't send it in.

I want to hear these things from him and yet I am not sure I can always believe him. I know he means well but the many times there has been a lack of follow-through just hurts too much.

A prominent member of our congregation recently lost his mother, aleha hashalom. He wrote an article distributed to the congregation that read in part

what I have learned is how deeply [our rabbi] is committed to our congregants, particularly to their individual Jewish lives. [His] attention and consolation and advice was precious to me and my family.
I do not feel that I received much of anything in the way of attention and consolation and advice from my rabbi--the same man praised by this other congregant--when my father, alav hashalom, died three years ago. Or when my daughter died in May. Once my conversion was over and I had no reason to meet every two weeks with my rabbi, I am not at all sure that there is much of any commitment on his part to my individual Jewish life. If there is, how do I find it? How do I see it? Feel it?

All I can think of is, what does this prominent member have that I don't? Why does he get what I felt I needed, both when my father died and just recently when my baby died?

He is able to donate a generous amount of money to the shul.
He is born Jewish.
His brain chemistry is normal, not wacky.

I have none of these things, since the whole thing with my maternal great-grandmother still meant I needed a conversion. Is that why? Is that why I don't count as much? Does my individual Jewish life not matter as much?

I never say these things out loud, never tell anyone especially the rabbi for fear I would be labeled too needy. But these things are in my head anyway. I don't know if it's the depression talking or my history or reality.

And it's why I don't know what's appropriate for me to ask for. Or if the rabbi is even who I should be asking.

I had thought there were no words

2007-07-09T16:11:00.000-05:00

I have not been on the blogs lately. I guess you can tell. I was inconsolable for many days after losing my baby, almost a week. I feel I did eventually make peace with it. I think maybe she left me with gifts, changes in both my attitude and my body. Changes for the better.

The universe was kind to me, overall. I had an appointment with my new psychiatrist and my counselor two days after I was discharged from the hospital. The psychiatrist immediately increased my meds. We talked longer than our alotted time and she was, I think, very supportive.

It turned out I had two side effects from the increase--a higher dose than I've ever been on, though it is considered a starting point for most people. My side effects were a loss of appetite and dry mouth. So I was eating less and drinking more water. So sad.

Seriously, if I could have picked any side effects those would be the ones I wanted.

I made a memory book of photographs we took at the delivery. I included our ultrasound photos and photos of the burial. Since her death, I am seeing (living) dragonflies everywhere. They fly to me and around my head. I wonder if they are a message from her. I picked an album with dragonflies and butterflies on the cover.

I thought I had done a quick recovery and was playing "it would have been worse if..." games with myself. it would have been worse if she'd been full term. It would have been worse if she'd been born and lived only a few days or weeks or months. It would have been worse if she'd been my first child. I'm quite good at those games, but they serve no purpose other than to keep me from feeling my grief.

So I turned to another better method. I am painting a (large) room in my house. It had been unusable before but I have fixed and repaired and sealed and am now painting. It will be a cheery yellow with white trim.

It occurred to me today after emailing a friend that painting this room is kind of like Jewish prayer. It is something for my body to do, moving and concentrating on something known and familiar. Just as reciting prayers is almost like a mantra, painting is something like a kata, repeating movements as in a martial art. Both free my creative and spiritual mind to contemplate Something Else.

I have thought of my daughter a great deal while painting. I almost feel as if this room will be one she and I will share. It is comforting.

I am still hopeful that we will have another baby. Meanwhile I work on getting healthy again.

Having mentioned healthy, I did have another depression, as my psychiatrist expected. It was much more mild and the worst lasted only one day. She increased my meds again a little bit to try and keep my depression cycles to a tolerable level. I have usually four a year: January, April, July, and October. The worst are always October and January and the psychiatrist thinks it may be related to SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. I am sure that the fact that there are many, many holidays in both months might play a part, too.

I am exercising, briskly walking two miles a day. My sleep is not so great. I wake at 4am and can't get back to sleep for a couple of hours. My psychiatrist prescribed Lunesta but both times when I took it I woke with panic attacks and acute anxiety that lasted for a couple of hours, so no more Lunesta for me. I have lost 18 pounds in the past five weeks, which makes me happy. My blood sugar remains normal.

I am slowly unraveling my issues with my shul. I will save it for another post because it's so involved.

It is still so hard to reach out, so hard not to isolate, so hard to feel. Thank G-d for medication. And good doctors. And good friends. And a place to share. And the words to begin to heal.

Why, G-d?

2007-05-21T21:09:00.000-05:00

I must announce at this time the birth--and death--of our beautiful daughter at 18 1/2 weeks gestation. I am heartbroken.

There is so much to say but the words won't come. I am exhausted and sore and empty. There is little in the way of Jewish ritual to deal with this.

I miss her. I miss feeling her kick inside me. I miss dreaming and thinking about welcoming her into our family. I miss the security of knowing we would at last have our long-prayed-for third child. I am sad I will never get to know her, never learn her hopes and dreams, never watch her find her own way, never hold her little hand in mine, never kiss her sweet face.

We do not know yet what happened, other than that when I went into the doctor's because I had the stomach flu, they could not find a heartbeat. Three ultrasounds and two hours later it was confirmed. There was no heartbeat. She had died, as much as a week or two earlier.

Labor was induced the next day and I labored for 9 1/2 hours and with one push she was out. We held her tiny body and marveled at how developed she was. Her hands were the size of my little finger's nail. Her knuckles and fingernails were exquisite. She had long slender fingers.

We will have a short private funeral/burial tomorrow. I don't want to say goodbye. I want to still be pregnant.

It is not fair. This pregnancy helped me out of my depression last winter. It was a promise of hope, that life goes on, that it's worth going on. And now? Now it's taken away. It feels like a cruel joke. I worry that this will send me right back into depression.

My meds have been adjusted to deal with this and whatever postpartum depression might follow. My care team is in place. We know we will try again.

But this doesn't change the fact that my baby is dead. And I am heartbroken.

I don't even know where to start (good post)

2007-05-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

I would never in a million years have guessed what has happened over the past two months.

Yes, I am still pregnant, baruch Hashem! Four and a half months and counting. Baby seems to be doing well and I should start feeling movements any time now. I have developed gestational diabetes for the third time in as many pregnancies, and while I have to inject insulin twice a day so far, and test my blood sugar four times a day, I'm doing okay with that. I don't enjoy the needle pricks, but I do like knowing that I'm taking care of myself and my baby by doing so.

That isn't the zinger though. The event that blew my mind is this:

Apparently, I am not bipolar and have been living with the wrong diagnosis for 13 years.

Here is the background. Remember when I was really depressed in January? I was referred to a psychiatrist and a psychiatric physician's assistant back then, but didn't get an appointment until April. I guess a lot of people need psychiatric help. I had an in-depth intake and several long appointments. They reviewed my psychiatric history over the past 17 years and had one question: how did I get the bipolar diagnosis?

I remember that part well. It was 1994. I was hospitalized for the second time in six months and my doctors convinced me to begin medication. To determine what meds I should be on, I had to answer a ton of questions about my moods.

Did my depression last for more than two weeks? Yes.
Did it interfere with my ability to live life? Yes.
Did I ever feel like I had a lot of energy? Yes.
What did I do with that energy? Clean, organize, shop.
Did I find it hard to sleep when I had this extra energy? Yes.
Did this extra energy alternate with the depression? Sort of. I never had the extra energy during my deepest depressions.
And so on.

There was no question about episodic depression, and one doctor suspected bipolar. So I was put on an anti-psychotic, a mood stabilizer. I was told that if this stabilized my moods, I was bipolar. If I didn't react to it, then I wasn't.

It stabilized my moods. Sort of. I wasn't sad but I wasn't happy either. I was just mildly depressed all the time. I lived life like a zombie. I did this for two years and finally couldn't stand feeling like I was just taking up space. I weaned off the meds and found that exercise, avoiding sugar, and a strong spiritual/religious life kept me pretty grounded most of the time. My depressive episodes slowed to two bad times per year--October and January--and two more mild episodes in April and July. My psychiatrist at the time told me to keep doing what I was doing, and eventually ended treatment.

Fast forward to April 2007. I was asked more detailed questions about these energy surges.

Did I ever feel invincible? No.
Did I ever take risks that put me or others in harm's way? No.
Was this excess energy goal-directed or generalized to everything? It was always goal-directed. That's why I couldn't sleep. I was so excited about my grand plans for whatever I was about to do (as in finding that perfect clock radio), that I couldn't wait until morning.

Then they asked other things:

Do I ever feel anxious in social situations? Yes. Always.
Do I ever worry about something that may or may not happen in the future? Constantly.
Do I ever have physical symptoms from my worrying? Yes--lack of sleep, headaches, stomachaches, sore muscles.
What do I do when I feel anxious? Clean, organize, shop.

Aha.

There is nothing here, the psychiatrist said while patting my very fat psychiatric file, to indicate mania. Episodic depression, yes. Anxiety, yes. And a high likelihood of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Even indications of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder--a type of anxiety disorder. But not mania. Every episode I had where I had to clean my kitchen until it sparkled, or shop for the perfect clock radio, or reorganize all the bookshelves? Anxiety attacks.

After a month of appointments, they are about to toss the bipolar diagnosis. My new diagnosis is Major Depression, General Anxiety Disorder with Obsessive Compulsive Features, and Seasonal Affective Disorder. And the reason for the recurring depressive episodes--roughly every three months? Most likely a hormonal imbalance.

As it turns out, the Prozac I'm on is what they'd first recommend for the depression and anxiety. And I don't have to worry about triggering a manic episode. Come September, we will develop a plan for when the baby is born, since I have a documented track record for severe postpartum depression. After that, probably after the baby weans, we'll look at other options, and both have said that I will be a full participant in deciding which option to try in what order. But medication may be some combination of an antidepressant and hormones.

This has completely changed my identity. Here I have worried, sometimes excessively, about triggering a manic episode, and the worry itself is part of what's wrong.

And yet it's a relief. It feels more right than the "atypical bipolar II" ever felt. I don't have to explain how my manic episodes aren't like everyone else's manic episodes. Now when I get the urge to clean (and it's not just prior to Pesach), I ask myself if I'm anxious about anything. So far, I always am. I try to deal with what I'm anxious about instead and that helps a lot.

The best part is, I feel like I can finally get the help I need for what's really going on with me, and that, I believe, will better my life not only for me but also my entire family.

I do not remember it being this hard

2007-03-25T19:26:00.000-05:00

the last time I was pregnant. I don't remember constant morning-noon-night sickness and fatigue that won't let up. I don't remember only being able to walk from the parking lot to the store entrance and then needing to sit and rest before continuing my errands. I don't remember bouncing from elation to fear about having another child.

My husband does. According to him, this is the only way women are willing to go through this all again to have more children, if we forget the day to day difficulties. I can understand that.

My depression seems to be completely gone, but the odd concurrent problem is that I'm frequently so nauseous that it's hard to take medication, including my depression meds. I am under medicated right now but trying to get back on track. Maybe if I hid the pill in a spoonful of chocolate frozen yogurt?

Pesach has me completely freaking out. I don't have the energy to clean the way I should and my husband is doing what he can, and quite willingly, but I'm afraid it's just not going to be the same this year.

One of my favorite Pesach dishes is called Turkish Pie and is a wonderful mixture of ground beef and onions, cooked for an insanely long time, like three hours, and then placed into a shell made of softened matzo so you have something like a meat/onion pie. I look forward to it every year, and it takes pretty much all day to make. This year, I can't stand to be around the smell of cooking meat or onions of any kind. I guess I will have to wait until next year.

I'm very worried about controlling my morning sickness with kosher l'Pesach products. Saltines are my best friend right now, and I just worry that matzo won't do the trick. My previous pregnancies never took place over Pesach, so this is a first.

On a much more positive note, I have had some strange cravings at various times:

Pineapple
Caesar salad
Poultry
Potato salad
Chocolate frozen yogurt
Orange juice

I guess they're not that strange. In previous pregnancies, I craved tuna noodle casserole, pickles, Greek olives, rainbow sherbet, salsa, and Coke icees. I see there's progress here: this time there's more fruit/veggies and proteins and fewer sugars and carbs. :)

Maybe I should call myself the new improved Rivka. No longer (for now) depressed. Just hormone-enhanced. ;)

G-d has a sense of humor

2007-03-09T00:38:00.000-05:00

I know I have not posted in quite some time. The depression got a little better, then a little worse, then a little bit more better. And then it just plateaued. I wasn't exactly happy, wasn't exactly hopeless and down. Just sort of existing.

And then I got really really tired, which made sense because of the higher dose of meds. So with my doctor's consent, I adjusted my meds down a bit.

And then I got sick.

Every morning.

So I peed on a stick and it seems now is the time G-d has decided was appropriate to bless us with the likelihood (G-d willing that all goes well) of another child.

Now I don't know what is going on. My emotions are not quite back to where they were before but now I've got hormones running the show. I can't separate what is depression and what is pregnancy.

The doctors all think this is probably why the depression was so severe this time. Normal depression + pregnancy hormones = scary.

By April I will have a whole team working with me: counselor, psychiatrist, obstetrician, OB nurse, primary physician. The plan, since I have the long history of depression and a well documented history of severe postpartum depression, is to stay on the Prozac. It is well tested and the benefits, especially at this dosage, far outweigh the risks. It will be monitored closely after birth, with no hesitations to increase it in order to head off the worst of the PPD. I feel comfortable with this plan.

I have my first OB appointment next week. I am so glad that my strength is slowly returning, even though it is tempered by the pregnancy exhaustion, and I can be alert and involved. I am glad I was not hospitalized for the depression and they didn't try changing up my meds. Who knows what that could have done to a developing embryo.

This all is a big reason why I haven't been blogging much lately. I feel nauseated pretty much all day and all night. I have a package of soda crackers nearby at all times. I have no idea what I'm going to do during Pesach if I'm still having morning/noon/night sickness. I don't know if matzo will accomplish the same thing. I don't know how I'm going to get my house cleaned for Pesach. I have decided I will not be hosting a seder this year. I may be depressed and pregnant, but I'm not a masochist.

On the other hand, G-d willing all goes well, we will be welcoming another life into our family around Sukkot. Talk about welcoming strangers! What an amazing, incredible gift. I am truly blessed.

My life in lyrics II

2007-03-07T23:46:00.000-05:00

It´s been a long road, getting from there to here.
It´s been a long time, but my time is finally near.
And I can feel the change in the wind right now. Nothing´s in my way.
And they´re not gonna hold me down no more, no they´re not gonna hold me down.

Cause I´ve got faith of the heart.
I´m going where my heart will take me.
I´ve got faith to believe. I can do anything.
I´ve got strength of the soul. And no one´s gonna bend or break me.
I can reach any star. I´ve got faith, I´ve got faith, faith of the heart.

It´s been a long night. Trying to find my way.
Been through the darkness. Now I finally have my day.
And I will see my dream come alive at last. I will touch the sky.
And they´re not gonna hold me down no more, no they´re not gonna change my mind.

Cause I´ve got faith of the heart.
I´m going where my heart will take me.
I´ve got faith to believe. I can do anything.
I´ve got strength of the soul. And no one´s gonna bend or break me.
I can reach any star. I´ve got faith, faith of the heart.

I´ve known the wind so cold, and seen the darkest days.
But now the winds I feel, are only winds of change.
I´ve been through the fire and I´ve been through the rain.
But I´ll be fine.

Cause I´ve got faith of the heart.
I´m going where my heart will take me.
I´ve got faith to believe. I can do anything.
I´ve got strength of the soul. And no one´s gonna bend or break me.
I can reach any star. I´ve got faith.

I´ve got faith of the heart.
I´m going where my heart will take me.
I´ve got strength of the soul. And no one´s gonna bend or break me.
I can reach any star. I´ve got faith, I´ve got faith, faith of the heart.

It´s been a long road.

***
Enterprise Main Title
Available on the Broken Bow soundtrack
Lyrics by Diane Warren
Vocal by Russell Watson
Source: http://www.startreksoundtracks.com/lyrics/sts-lyrics-wheremyheart.html

It's Adar; reconciling happiness and depression

2007-02-22T18:38:00.000-05:00

I never really thought about this until this year, but how do we reconcile the fun and good-natured wish of, be happy--it's Adar! with the fact that some people have really good reasons for being unable to be happy and are not necessarily in control of whether they are happy or not? When I'm in the midst of a depression, I simply cannot just be happy.

It's everywhere now, on signs and emails and web sites and mailings from the shul. I so want to be happy, whether it's Adar or not, but there's only so much I can do. And I dread walking into shul and being met with a cheery smile and a why aren't you happy? It's Adar! Be happy!

I'm not saying we shouldn't encourage the increase of happiness, or that we should ban the signs and the greetings out of some politically correct concession to those who have every reason to be unhappy. Not at all. At the same time, I'm wondering if we're asking everyone to fake it 'til you make it. Just what do we mean by, be happy--it's Adar!

I just wonder how we reconcile it. Or if we do. And if we don't, why not?

Taking risks

2007-02-21T18:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I managed to get out of the house and together with some other moms and their children. I was able to laugh some. I was shaky and had to be driven; it wasn't safe for me to drive, but it was a nice couple of hours.

When I got home I was terribly tired and took a nap and when I woke I had several blips of hope for the future. I liked the happy hope but it also scared me. It meant getting out and being vulnerable. It meant taking risks.

Today I woke without any of the happy hopefulness. Just a heavy blanket that makes it hard to move and terrifying to leave my bedroom. I see my counselor again tomorrow. I know I am better than when I saw her last week but I am not all better yet. Meanwhile life goes on for everyone else and I have other responsibilities stacking up. It's all overwhelming and panic-inducing.

I am very touched that people I know, even some people who know of me but whom I've never met, have been providing meals this past week because of the efforts of one of my close friends who sent out email asking for volunteers. I keep reminding myself every day, every few hours if I need to, that people do care and they want me back to my normal self.

I also took the risk of telling a handful of moms yesterday about my diagnosis and my current depression. Not only were they not bothered by it, but one of them was looking for help for a friend who is bipolar (more mania than depression) and pregnant and untreated.

I talked to her about my experiences and recommended that her friend get a team together, her midwife, an OB or psychiatrist or other MD who is familiar with bipolar I, her partner, and write down a plan for what they'll do if she needs treatment before the baby is born, and also what they'll do if she needs treatment after the baby is born, and someone to check in on her periodically in case she is particularly predisposed to postpartum depression. I also gave her some other local resources for moms and for information on bipolar.

The mom who was looking for help for her friend said something about it being serendipity that I came that day. Maybe so.

My life in lyrics

2007-02-18T23:55:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think that I could make a video of my life with all the high points (marriage, birth of my children) and low points (like this past month) and I think about what music I'd pick to go with the video.

I do actually have a collection of songs that I use to motivate myself and unfortunately they have not worked so far but that might be changing.

One of the movies I lost myself in late last week was The Devil Wears Prada. One of the songs in the movie stuck in my head and even though I couldn't remember any of the words and didn't know who sang it or anything, it seemed important. I tracked it down tonight and the song is Suddenly I See by K.T. Tunstall. It is not, I found out, on the movie soundtrack.

Then I looked up the lyrics and it seemed terribly appropriate especially because the piece that kept playing over and over in my head was, "Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see) This is what I wanna be." That made me think about how a bad depression kind of gives me a chance to rebuild myself as I come out of it. What do I want to be? I know the hospital would ask the same thing. What am I going to do when I get out? If I went in in the first place.

There's more I want to say and one of the commenters that I've already picked on said something that made me realize I am not nearly as free of the destructive messages I learned from my parents as I thought I was. B'li neder, I will write about that more shortly.

My concentration continues to be not so great and I am still terribly tired. I was concerned it was a side effect of the medication but my husband thinks not and doesn't want me to lower the dosage until I'm fully out of the depression. He is afraid it will come back and I don't blame him. Too many things still terrify me, just thinking about them. But I have started to think about things I'd like to do, which I was not doing last week. I don't have the energy or really the motivation yet but at least I am thinking about them.

Improvement

2007-02-16T12:32:00.000-05:00

Today I am still very tired and have a difficult time with concentration but it has been three days since I cried last. I also have found that almost precisely five hours after I take my meds, I get terribly sleepy, so I am now taking them at dinner so I can get to sleep at a reasonable time.

I still have a great deal of anxiety and little things still overwhelm me, but it is not the hopeless state it was a week ago. With time and G-d's help, I believe I can take on more and more and get back to what I consider my more normal life.

I am still thinking about some of the comments to my experiences last Shabbos, but I cannot right now come up with a coherent response so I will leave it until next week. My apologies for taking so long to answer.

A good Shabbos to all; Shabbat shalom.

A priceless treasure

2007-02-15T23:37:00.000-05:00

I've written a little bit about my mom. I do acknowledge that this was almost three years ago and was probably the worst time in her life. We had never gotten along and this was just one of the worst times for me.

When I told her as a teenager that I had found my place, had found where I belonged in Judaism, she went ballistic. She searched my room while I was in school for any sort of Judaica and anything she found she threw out or burned. I had to sneak books about Judaism home from the library and read them by flashlight in the middle of the night. A high school friend had given me a mezuzah with the scroll inside. I don't know if it was kosher or not but I guarded it like a priceless treasure.

My depressions in high school were bad enough that it came to the attention of the principal who called social services who threatened to have me removed from my home unless my parents got me into therapy. They denied there were problems. They denied all of the abuse. They set me up with a psychiatrist who wanted to drug me and when I refused they demanded I tell them about each of my sessions. When I refused to do that as well because the psychiatrist said anything I said was confidential so long as I wasn't a threat to myself or anyone else they refused to pay his bill. Therapy ended before it could do any good.

My track record with my mom is not good. So please allow me some shock and surprise in response to the email I received from her tonight. I wrote to her and told her about this latest depression, about maybe having to be hospitalized, about adjusting my meds. The times I've told her about previous depressions she's told me many of the things I suggested were not good choices for someone who's depressed. I expected more of the same but decided honesty in telling her what was going on with me was preferable to ignoring her.

I got nothing of the sort. I got an email that sounded genuinely concerned and supportive. She even asked what she could do long distance. She has never asked that before. I know people can change but I am stunned. I wonder if it has something to do with her having a new relationship. If so I hope he stays forever. Her email left me feeling like I wanted to call her and not just email back. I'm a little scared that she might not be the same way on the telephone but it may be worth the risk.

Like the mezuzah from all those years ago this is an email I will treat like a priceless treasure. My mom reaching out to me in a loving way. That really is priceless.

One step back

2007-02-15T15:12:00.000-05:00

I saw my medical doctor yesterday. She had no recommendations for a psychiatrist except to refer me to the behavioral health center within the HMO so I will continue to wait to see the psychiatrist's assistant at my counselor's clinic. She had no problem refilling my meds and said what I was taking now was still considered a low dose even though it's high to me.

My husband drove me to a meeting last night while a friend watched our children. It was very hard being around so many people but I really felt I needed to go because the speakers were talking about a topic that is important to my work. While I was there a few people I've known for a year or so asked what was wrong, if I was okay. I struggled with telling them and finally explained what was going on. They didn't even bat an eye. Well actually one said, you're doing everything you're doing and you're dealing with this? Now I'm even more impressed.

I may have overdone it though. I am so tired today and can't shake the feeling that nothing I say or do is worth much. My concentration is very bad. Last week I could still lose myself in a book or a movie, but today I can't concentrate on anything for more than about ten minutes. I just want to hide away.

I seem to remember this from last time, that it's two steps forward and one step back as I get better. For right now, I think I'll go take a nap.

Wow

2007-02-13T00:43:00.001-05:00

I am a little overwhelmed and a little surprised and a little sad that this blog has apparently touched so many others. Overwhelmed and surprised because I didn't think people would be that interested in reading depressing posts or posts on depression. Sad because so very many people are struggling with the same thing or know someone who is or see that people in their communities need help with this and there's only so much that the individual can do.

In a moment of irony, I'm tempted to say that what I'm doing right now contributes to the problem. I'm typing words onto a computer screen instead of reaching out to others in my immediate community. Two close friends and members of my congregation have had a parent die in the past week. I need to get myself together enough to make another shiva call.

Others may argue that I'm making connections here even if it's through this electronic medium. That this still helps, and maybe eventually will help my congregation too. Perhaps that's the reason I said okay when D suggested starting this blog instead of haranguing me yet again to journal on paper. Certainly I do not want to just spew negativity into the universe. We have enough of that. I want to find a way to articulate the problems and find solutions. Even if the ultimate problem for my life lies in my own brain chemistry.

One commenter said something that is very true, but still bothers me. Maybe it's this lens through which I'm viewing everything. Anon identified him/herself as someone else who struggles with depression and said:

But part of the pact is that we have to be willing to help ourselves, otherwise this places a responsibility on others which they may not be emotionally equipped to handle. If someone is acting in a way that seems irrational and unstable, they can't realistically expect people around them to be lining up to hug and soothe them in any situation.

I need to respond to this, for me if not for the commenter. I do take issue with the description of "irrational and unstable." Those are loaded words that bring to my mind a break with reality, more descriptive of psychosis than depression. What people around me would have seen was me crying. They would not have known if I was irrational or not and I doubt that "unstable" would have been in the first five words they'd use to describe me. I could be wrong, but don't think I am. There is already enough stigma attached to depression. Irrational and unstable fuels that stigma. It doesn't lessen it.

Anon does have a point, however. I would never suggest that I or anyone else ought to simply do nothing and expect the community to pick up the slack. I don't know if that's what he/she had in mind or not. It could be read that way or it could be read simply that support needs to come from professional sources and not from one's faith community.

It reminds me of Benjamin Franklin's quotation that "G-d helps those who help themselves." From what research I've attempted, Franklin was predominantly a Deist and believed that G-d did not have a hand in human affairs. This, to me, could easily be turned into help yourself because no one else is going to.

Is that what we want? It's not what I want, not for me and not for my congregation. Yes, we each need to take responsibility for ourselves, for our care and our safety. This is why I am in therapy and have been for a very, very long time. It is why I have been diligent about taking my medication for almost four years since it was prescribed. While it now needs adjustment, I cannot be considered negligent in this area.

The fact that I do not have a psychiatrist is an unfortunate intersection of managed health care and a clinic more focused on policy than people. It is not because I expected others to care for me instead of helping myself.

I don't work outside the home so I do not have friends or a support network through work. I used to have a support network of other stay at home mothers but our group grew and gained many new and enthusiastic Christian members. It was wonderful for the group, but as the only Jew, I became something of a non-entity. I'm not sure if I still have that support. I have little contact with my biological family. I do have a handful of close friends. And I have my shul, which is very important to me. It seems natural to me that I should look to my faith community as a support network.

Every professional--doctor, counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist, rabbi, social worker--has stressed the need for a support network. We all need people to turn to when we are in need, people we can give to when they are in need. Perhaps the Internet and iPods and handheld video games have eroded support networks and we are far more alone than we think we are. Perhaps, but I have hope for my congregation.

I should post the good things my congregation does. Unfortunately, much of it would risk my anonymity. I don't believe they are "heartless and self-involved" as the same Anon wrote, though I can see why he/she might read that into what I've written. I do believe we have some problems, some tendencies to stick to old cliques and not be as welcoming or outgoing or receptive to those in pain as we could be.

Some time ago a congregant who also suffered from depression and who had been open about it with those he felt he could trust was in such pain from his depression that there seemed only one way out. After his death and the subsequent shock to the community, the rabbi sent out information to every congregant about helping the surviving family to reintegrate into shul life. What to say, what to do, what not to expect. It was extremely helpful and informative to me as a congregant who didn't know the family well.

We used to have a committee that looked at how to provide the opportunity for further connections within the shul. But that committee went through some turnover and changes and now focuses almost entirely on new members. We have another committee that focuses on the needs of those just out of the hospital, new mothers, bereaved families. Needs are attended to by volunteers. People volunteer to cook meals, bring a Shabbos meal, whatever they can help with. It depends on a coordinator and those volunteers. How to contact that committee remains somewhat of a mystery. Most of the names on their need list are supplied by the rabbi.

I have honestly done everything I can think of within the time and financial and legal limits I have to ask for help in the past two weeks short of screaming, I need help! from the bima. I've come to believe that the response from those in the congregation who saw me and said nothing to me or my husband or the rabbi has more to do with them simply not knowing what to do, what to say. That's something I want to change.

Jewish culture versus personal comfort

2007-02-12T18:33:00.000-05:00

I saw my counselor today and things are underway to get me in to see the physician's assistant who is supervised by a psychiatrist. It could be a few weeks, but it's a good recommendation from my counselor who has known me for four years, and the two of them can work together to make sure my treatment is appropriate. I do believe my counselor is an excellent advocate for me.

I talked to her some about being Unseen at shul and about my hopes for our shul's future. While she is not Jewish, she had a perspective I had not considered.

She suggested that it may be cultural. Not like Jewish culture versus Christian culture, but like geographic culture, how people are socially different in New England than they are in the Pacific Northwest than they are in the South than they are in America's heartland. She said it sounded like it had a lot to do with their comfort level.

This is my personal space, she said making a kind of boundary around her. I immediately thought of the Talmud's concept of a personal courtyard. Then she said, people believe anything outside of their space has nothing to do with them. They are focused on what is immediate and in their comfort zone.

This would explain the shul kiddush turned high school cafeteria. People see someone crying, think oh, that's not comfortable, let's go back over here to people I know who are happy and up. It's comfortable, I know them, and they can be in my personal space/courtyard.

I personally do not believe this is what Jewish community is all about. I actually do not believe this is what my rabbi thinks Jewish community is all about, though I cannot speak for him. My observations of his behavior and the issues he is passionate about and the words he speaks from the bima tell me that he would prefer we care a little more for one another. I have no idea why I never heard back from him about meeting last Friday, but I do know it was a very busy week and a lot of unanticipated demands of his time and maybe he didn't even get that last email. Or maybe he was just overwhelmed with everything else going on and I slipped through the cracks again. I don't know.

Although I have thought more than once about making Aliyah, it is not something my family can do right now. Maybe in the future. So I do not have the different sort of community in Israel. I am limited to the Jewish community in which I live, and if it is a cultural behavior then people are probably going to have to want to work hard to attain a different level of comfort and community that is within their personal space.

But the alternative is that people like me continue to cry for help and wonder if anyone other than G-d hears them.

Tell us what more we can be doing

2007-02-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

My rabbi said that yesterday. At the time I didn't know how to answer.

I talked with my husband at greath length this morning about yesterday. We talked about whether expecting true community, people caring about one another, was unrealistic. We talked about the fact that this was not an isolated incident, for me or for others.

We know people who have left the shul entirely because they did not feel supported. We know people who no longer stay for the kiddush luncheon because no one talks to them unless they initiate it. We know people who never receive invitations to Shabbos dinner or a Seder.

I don't know if the rabbi knows this or not. I don't know if he knows that new members are welcomed and embraced in proportion to the amount of money they make, what they can offer the shul, or their ties to long-established members of the shul. We have been members here for almost twelve years and we would not be considered long-established members.

I don't know if he knows that during the kiddush luncheon or any other social time, people gravitate toward their own social circles and tend to ignore everyone else. I don't know if he knows that if you are not wealthy or not politically connected or not related to someone popular in the shul, it is easy to be marginalized.

I don't know if he realizes that social events, including after shul on Shabbos, is just like high school all over again. But whether he knows it or not, I think he needs to hear it from us. I think we owe it to him, to the congregation, to all those who have left, are considering leaving, and those who have yet to be disappointed and cast aside, to tell him.

He cannot legislate community. He cannot force others to care. No one can. But I am sure there are ways, inexpensive easy ways to drive home the point that we all have an obligation to one another. Even if we ourselves are not in a position to help right now, we have an obligation to find someone who can.

One of the basic fundamentals of Judaism is that Kol Yisrael arevim zeh lazeh. A Jew does not live isolated from the rest of the world, nor can he be concerned merely with his own existence and survival. Jews must reach out and give of themselves to their fellow Jews.
From: http://www.ou.org/chagim/articles/light.htm

A commenter asked, Do you usually stop to comfort someone who is crying and upset? The answer is yes, I do. And if for some reason I am hurting too much myself, I will--and have--found others who I know can do something. I am not particularly extroverted, even in the best of times. I find it very hard to trust people. But I know what it's like to be in pain and be Unseen. So I do my best to See people.

I see people who want to join a conversation but don't know how and so I ask them a question to include them. I see women nursing their infants in a special sitting area next to the women's restroom and looking like they need something but don't want to bother anyone. I always ask and in particular offer to get them a glass of water. I know how thirsty I got when I was nursing. I see people who are sitting by themselves at a table and I ask if they would like some company. I make a point of looking for new faces, people who are not already engaged in conversation, people who are looking a little lost, and I ask if they are visiting or new members. I often offer to introduce them to a dozen other people I know.

Even as shy as I am, it is not hard to do this. The questions are easy: can I get you something? Would you like some company? Are you new here? But one has to See these people first.

The same commenter said that a more likely reason for not saying anything is not knowing how to proceed and how to offer comfort. This is a problem that has a solution. This is something more that the shul can be doing. We have offered classes in bikkur cholim, how to visit the sick. Why could we not offer information, even from the bima, about how to care for one another? How to ask? What to ask?

If the congregation simply does not know, we can fix that. If they do not care or do not want to see, then we have a bigger problem.

My husband and I are going to try to see our rabbi about this in the next week. This is bigger than just my not being seen. This is about much more than me. This affects all of us. It may not be me who is Unseen next time. I want to spare them the pain I am going through now.

Release

2007-02-11T16:20:00.000-05:00

In the interests of being completely honest on this blog about what I'm going through, I have to admit that I sort of gave in to the overwhelming urge to cut last night. I'm not proud of my weakness. I thought I could fight it off.

I tried to tell people yesterday about how much I hurt. By late last night I was having panic attacks. Horrible, reality-distorting panic attacks when I thought about the near future. I tried to tell my husband, but admittedly it was 1:00 in the morning and he was tired. I had no one to call.

I deliberately chose something that was sharp enough to hurt but neither sharp enough nor big enough to draw blood. I pressed and dragged it slowly over sensitive skin until the pain made me nauseous. This was not about suicidal ideations. I do not want to die. I simply needed a physical release for the pain ready to burst out of me. That's why I was careful in my choice. It's not ideal. Ideal would be never to have had to do it in the first place. But not doing it would have meant being driven to take handfuls of pills or drive my head through a wall.

I scratched up my arm to save my life, really. I know that is twisted and warped but that is what depression does to me. It was the lesser of two or more evils. Even as I did it I thought about b'tselem Elokim, being created in the image of G-d. I thought about that and felt badly, but I didn't know what else to do. Prayer was not helping last night.

Today it hurts. It's red but there's still no blood. It didn't cut deep enough to even ooze. The pain remains a release today. I don't have to do it again. G-d willing, not ever.

At loose ends

2007-02-11T16:09:00.000-05:00

I had a horrible night. I hurt so much from yesterday and the uncertainty of this next week.

Hospitalization was looking more attractive, more necessary, until I checked our health insurance coverage and saw that we would need first to give the insurance company a 5 day advance notice for inpatient care unless it were a life or death emergency. And second insurance only covers 80%.

In 1995 the average daily cost in the United States for inpatient care at a behavioral health unit ran about $500 a day. Figure an increase of at least 20% over ten years (maybe much, much more) and we're talking about out of pocket expenses of at least $120 a day. If they change my meds rather than just the dosage, it takes 2-3 weeks to reach a therapeutic level, and they'd want me stabilized before I left. That means taking on a debt of at least $2000.

I can't do that to our family. Plus there are other issues, child care chief among them. I know the argument is that my life is worth more than $2000 but I can't justify the stress my family would be under to pay the bills, either. I'm hoping there is some other option. Or maybe the increase in my meds since Thursday will help before it gets to that point.

Support exists on the Jblogosphere

2007-02-11T16:00:00.000-05:00

I want to say a very sincere thank you to Jack who said last week he would include me in this week's Haveil Havalim without my having to submit a post. It really means a lot to me that he offered support.

And thanks also to all those who have commented, who read regularly whether they comment or not, and who take what they read here to make the world a little less painful for themselves or others.

What would I want my congregation to know? Part III

2007-02-10T20:30:00.000-05:00

An anonymous letter to my congregation:

I write to you today as one of the Unseen. It hurts to not be seen. It hurts even more to suffer alone and in silence.

I have a mental illness, depression in particular. I hide it well most of the time.

Today I did not hide it. I cried openly in shul. I trembled from the sheer pain of it, surrounded by some two hundred people, during the kiddush luncheon that followed, and still you did not see me. I stumbled out of the social hall, blinded by tears I could not control and sobs that left me unable to breathe, and still no one saw me.

I took refuge in the chapel and sobbed aloud. In the past I would hide in the bathroom, taking great pains to silence my tears when anyone came in. Today I did not. I sought solace, but I did not hide. People came into the chapel for various reasons: to look for a lost tallis, read the newspaper, find a book in the library. Even still, I remained Unseen.

When my sobs exhausted themselves and I found my peace in emotional numbness, I rose to leave the chapel, falling onto a chair in my weakened state. One man remained in the chapel, facing me. He did not even bother to look up. I left the chapel, Unseen.

I made my way to a class. At one point I was standing in the middle of a crowd. Two dozen or more people were close enough to me that accidental contact was inevitable. I was crying, wiping tears, choking through my breaths. I was in your midst, and still I remained Unseen.

Two women who already know me and know I've been struggling with this for the better part of a month did stop me on my way and expressed concern. After being surrounded by my congregation for four hours by then, I was finally seen. But only by those who already knew of my condition. And as a side note, every single of one of those are converts. What does that say?

My rabbi called after me. I was shaking and doing everything possible to hold back the tears. I was not successful. He said while hospitalization was not an attractive option, the results I could get were positive. He said a misheberach for me. He mis-remembered my Hebrew name, leaving off part of it. I didn't know if that invalidated it, but I was too shaky to correct him.

I entered late to the class, which was populated by people I know. You know me. But you did not see me. The teacher asked my opinion on the topic, and I somehow managed to push my brain into something resembling coherent thought. My voice as I answered was clearly one that had been crying. My eyes were red; my hands still grasped a damp tissue just in case.

The teacher was quite pleased with my answer and the discussion continued. I didn't trust my voice to contribute further. When the class ended, people left. No one said anything to me about my demeanor. You who were in the class with me have known me for a dozen years. You are part of the lay leadership of the shul. I respect you and your learning and your commitment to the congregation. Why did you not see me?

Perhaps all of you in the congregation had too much going on in your own lives today. Perhaps you saw only what you wanted to see. Perhaps you saw me and thought to yourself, it's not my business.

On behalf of the Unseen, it is your business. If we are not sensitive to the pain and needs of each other in the congregation, what business do we have even being there? You may not be able to fix the problem. But you can show that you care. You can ask if I'm okay, if I need help, if I need to talk to someone, if I need to be alone.

But silence only tells me that you do not care. You do not see me. I am less than unimportant; I do not even exist.

My congregation, my Jewish community, my adopted family has let me down. That the only people who saw me other than my rabbi are all converts says nothing good about the Jewish community.

I do not understand why you will not see me. It hurts as much as my depression attacks my spirit. I am left only with the hope that you will hear me now. Do not assume that a fellow Jew in obvious pain is none of your business. Do not keep your blinders on in shul. If you cannot attend to someone yourself, find someone who can. Go get the rabbi if necessary. Do not walk away and assume someone else will come along.

Good questions to ask include: Do you need help? Are you safe? Do you need to be alone (if safety is not a concern)? Do you want to talk? Can I get someone for you?

Use your common sense. Depression kills. It kills the spirit, but it is also a leading cause of suicide, either intentional or by accident when someone with depression cuts himself or herself to relieve the pain, to be seen, and accidentally cuts too deep or the wrong thing and can't get help in time.

Taking one small minute out of your day, out of your life, to see someone in obvious pain could literally save a life. And it is the only Jewish thing to do.

Holding pattern

2007-02-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

I write this from bed while watching bad daytime t.v. at 1:30 in the afternoon. Right now it is just background noise. I am trying another meds adjustment for the next few days, to see if it can get me over this patch. Usually increasing from my usual 5mg a day to 10mg a day for a week or so works. But this time I started on 10mg a day back on January 10, and it is now almost a month later and I'm no better off. I've been on 15mg a day before and not had even a hint of mania, only sleep disturbances. I hope that an increase will lift me out of this, because if it doesn't, hospitalization is the only option left. Even I see that.

I ran out of medication mid-week even though I called in a refill last week. But the pharmacy couldn't get a hold of my doctor to get a refill authorized. Finally my husband called the doctor's office and they said they never got the request. My doctor authorized 15 pills (10mg each) but wants to see me for a physical before she authorizes more. I can't get in to see her in the next week because she has no appointments available, and if I'm taking 15-20mg a day for a week, I will run out of medication again. I only got this far because the pharmacy gave my husband two pills to tide me over until the refill could be approved.

I don't have a psychiatrist. I used to, but the last one I had didn't want to listen to me and my experience and what worked and didn't work for me. She wanted me to wean my baby at four months old and take a powerful anti-psychotic drug that would leave me an emotional zombie. I refused to wean my baby to take a medication I didn't want when there were other viable alternatives available. The antidepressant was working well but she wouldn't accept that. When I refused, she flagged my file at the clinic as a troublemaker and no other psychiatrist at the clinic would see me. My insurance wouldn't cover any other clinic that was accepting new patients. I am on my own.

I have different insurance now but I don't want a psychiatrist who thinks he or she knows me better than I know myself. I have lived with this illness for most of my life. I am intelligent and introspective. I know my warning signs. I am honest with my caregivers and my husband. I should have a say in my treatment. I am the one who has to live with myself.

Yesterday my rabbi e-mailed that he had some time today to talk. I wrote back minutes later and said whatever worked for him was okay and could my husband join us. I don't know what happened, but I haven't heard from him since and Shabbos begins in three hours so I don't think we are meeting today after all. Tomorrow he is teaching after shul. It's hard not to be disappointed, to wonder what happened, to think about what I need from my rabbi. It's hard not to take it personally, that I'm not important after all.

Now I feel like my meds are being held hostage, or that I'll run out again before I can get in for a physical. Or that medical beaurocracy will drive me to the hospital just for medication management. I feel like the universe is conspiring against me.

Still I trust that things will work out. I trust that G-d knows what is best for me. I trust that what is meant to happen will happen.

I took a single Tylenol PM last night to help me sleep. This morning when I looked at myself in the mirror, my eyes were sunken, deep dark circles all the way around my eyes. My skin looked grayish and pasty, my mouth in a relaxed frown that hurt to smile. I went back to bed, which is where I remain, resting, watching bad daytime t.v. and just holding on.

Update: still no word from the rabbi. However my doctor's office called and said they had a cancellation for next Wednesday morning, so I will see her then. My counselor called today and said she blocked off an hour on Monday and I could see her again then. I know it's her lunch hour.

She is also working to get me an appointment with a physician's assistant who is supervised by a psychiatrist. She has really good things to say about this PA, and I could schedule counseling and med checks in consecutive appointments in the same building.

One of my friends that I e-mailed sent a card that I received in yesterday's mail, and another one today. She's also been sending me daily e-mail. Another of the four friends I e-mailed is coordinating with my husband to help as she can.

I wish my Jewish community were here for me, but I am very appreciative for the support I am feeling now from others.

To the hospital???

2007-02-08T18:46:00.000-05:00

I didn't want to bore anyone with continuing tales of woe, but the fact is, despite the various things that have happened over the past two weeks or so, the depression that made its severity known here has not gone away. It's questionable whether or not it's gotten worse.

I just saw my counselor today and my husband went with me. Between the two of them, they think this is serious enough that they are of the opinion that I should be hospitalized. I managed to talk them into 48 hours until we make that decision, so I have until Sunday. I really don't want to go. It's been fifteen years since I was last hospitalized for this.

In the past hour I've managed to gather most of my emotions and seal them away. It may not be particularly healthy but it allows me to function for now. Otherwise I'd be terrified of going to the hospital and equally terrified of not getting any help.

I think I will maybe be meeting with my rabbi tomorrow, though I have no idea what I would say. I'm not even sure what I need.

Update (evening): I kept busy this afternoon by cleaning and reading and was able to keep the depression at bay but it keeps all my feelings at bay as a result. It's also tiring; six hours of this and I'm dizzy and stumbling around from exhaustion. I don't really know what that will get me except buy me some time. Please G-d, may tomorrow be better.

How to respectfully ignore someone?

2007-02-08T00:14:00.000-05:00

In a previous post, I talked a little bit in the comments about a handful of not so nice people at shul. I got an e-mail from one of those people today. She was angry because when I saw her last at shul, she was verbally bashing another group of people and even though everyone else who was listening to her were just nodding silently, I couldn't stand it anymore.

I probably shouldn't have said anything, but all I could think of was how horrible these people would feel if it got back to them. This woman is one of those who thinks she's right and everyone else is wrong and she'll only be nice to you if you agree with her. I was just so overcome with emotion, and I thought very carefully about what I was going to say because I didn't want want to make it worse but I wanted it to stop.

I told her, this is what I hear you saying, and I summarized it as, you don't like ... because they ... That was all I said. My summary was exactly what she'd been saying, and the others around later confirmed that. But when I summarized it, the irrationality of her dislike and subsequent verbal attack on these people was evident. She took it to mean I was calling her a racist.

She's very involved in shul, socially and politically. I want to just ignore her, but I don't know how. We aren't a huge congregation, and I'm sure to run into her now and then. I'm also apprehensive about retaliation from her.

Do I just avoid looking at her? Do I look at her and feel sad that she's carrying around so much anger? Do I keep a wide physical space between us? I have a bad poker face and when I'm feeling low it's very hard not to take things so personally.

I don't know how to avoid her and retain my self-worth. She's very angry at me and even though I think I handled it as best I could, I can't help but feel like I'm in the wrong. Am I? Do I just talk to my rabbi about all of this? I don't want to feel scared or unwelcome in my own shul.

Existing

2007-02-07T13:19:00.000-05:00

I'm so tired and emotionally numb. My motivation for getting through the day is that Mandy is on tonight. It's silly, my little infatuation. It's not even so much that he's quite handsome, though he is. It's that there's something about his eyes, that I can almost believe he would understand how I feel. I crave that.

My husband has been very tired lately. He's working hard, picking up the slack I leave because I can only do so much right now. I feel guilty that I can't do more. I feel guilty for adding to his burden. I feel guilty for not spending as much time with my children as I could. At the same time, I feel like I have nothing left to give.

I want to sleep all the time. Everything takes such effort. I did get up, get dressed, fed myself and my child. My hair is uncombed and I don't care. I'm wearing the same shirt I did yesterday and I don't care. And then I feel guilty for not caring.

The pharmacy called yesterday. My refill for my medication hasn't been approved yet because they can't get a hold of my doctor. I placed the refill order late last week. Now I'm out. Two nights of missing my meds and this could spiral out of control. My husband called and they said they can give out a few since I'm out, until they can get the refill approval from my doctor.

I don't know why this is so hard. The last time I saw my doctor, I told her how the meds were working and about sometimes needing to go from every other day to every day. She supported that. She didn't need to see me until late 2007 unless something changed. I don't know why my prescription wouldn't extend until then. It's overwhelming to me.

I feel like I'm whining, like just stating how I feel is complaining. I don't want to whine, complain, wallow in negativity. I just want to feel better, get my energy back, get my enjoyment from life back.

I have to be at shul this week. No option. I don't know if I have enough energy to put on my public face, but I'm still scared to cry at shul again. Too much. I just want to go to sleep.

What would I want my congregation to know? Part II

2007-02-06T08:54:00.000-05:00

If there's a book called The Care and Feeding of Your Bipolar/Depressed Friend, this should be a chapter. The following are taken directly from my experience. Unfortunately.

What not to say to someone who is depressed or bipolar:

Snap out of it / get over it
Believe me, if I could, I would. In a heartbeat. Or less.
You're too sensitive
Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm struggling with an emotional disorder.
Everyone gets depressed
Everyone can have situational depressions; far fewer have chemical depressions when nothing is wrong in their lives.
What's wrong? What do you have to be depressed about?
Nothing, and that's the point. I endure terribly low depressions even when life is quite good.
Stop whining. Nobody likes to be around someone who is sad/cries/complains all the time
Which is exactly why I don't want to tell my friends or ask for support. And then it's even harder to get better.
Lighten up / you need to toughen up
Thicker skin will not change how I feel inside.
Get over yourself already / Why is it always about you? / You're just trying to get attention
There are far less painful ways to get attention, if that's what I wanted. I withdraw and isolate because I don't want attention. And it's about me because this is what's going on with me. This is my reality. Comments like this also contribute to my not wanting to ask for support.
This again? Didn't we go through this a month/year/whenever ago? / I'm not your therapist
That's the problem with episodic, cycling depression, the problem with bipolar: it always comes back, no matter what I do. I can find tools to cope, control the worst of it with medication, but it will always be there. Many people are happy to help--once. But for those of us with cycling depression or bipolar once usually isn't enough. I know that I may need extra support as often as 2-4 times a year. And when people ask, this again? it further reduces my willingness to ask for the support I need.
It's not Jewish to be depressed / It's a mitzvah to be happy
Believe me, if I could, I would. I'd much rather be happy. But being happy is not one of the 613 mitzvot, and calling on G-d for help from the depths of despair seems to me to be exceptionally Jewish. Besides, where or when--ever--in our history were Jews always happy?
You owe it to your family/husband/children to ignore this; they need you more than you need to be depressed / You could feel better if you only tried hard enough
Again, it's not a choice. It's not something I can ignore or put behind me. It's not something I can control any more than someone can ignore their asthma or diabetes or irritable bowel syndrome. It is my reality and I have to work within it. And sometimes that means I have to take care of myself before I can take care of my family.
I know what you mean / I've been depressed, too
I don't know how to take this. Lots of people have had situational depression, feeling down because of a trauma, unemployment, death, financial problems, divorce, infertility, terminal diagnosis, war, etc. Far fewer really know what it's like to have a chemical imbalance: major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder. How do I know you really know what I mean? Until I do, I'm more likely to see this as patroizing, even if it's entirely well-intentioned.
This too, shall pass
Yes, that's true. And I remind myself that in a few days or weeks or months, provided I don't harm myself, it will eventually get better. But eventually doesn't help me now. And now is when I need help.
What can I do to help? ** See comments, please. I will be writing more about this.
This may be the most-asked question and the hardest to answer. If I'm already in a depression, I won't know what you can do. I simply can't think. It's better to find a time when I'm stable and create a written plan for the next depression: this is what you can do, this is how you can help, this is what I need. Maybe it's child care for a few hours or going to the grocery store for me or making some telephone calls or helping me to clean my kitchen or maybe it's just sitting with me while I bawl my eyes out.

I know people who have done training in bikkur cholim, visiting the sick. One of the things they learned is not to ask, what can I do to help? because quite often the sick person doesn't know.

Instead, offer something you know you can do: run errands, babysit, cook a meal (beware of kashrut issues), help clean, visit, make phone calls, enlist other support, walk the dog, check out books from the library. Think about things you would want help with when you're sick.

Finally, please be understanding. I may be too embarrassed for you to see my house after a week or more of depression where I can't clean. I may not want to impose. When you offer to do something, I often see it as a trade, even if you don't. You'll do this for me and then when you need something, you'll call in the favor. Of course, I would do everything I can for my friends, if I'm able. But I can't guarantee when I'll be able, and I dislike feeling that I owe someone something. So I may say no because I want to avoid the debt. If you offer, and if you mean it, make sure you offer with no strings attached.
I know your plate is full, but can you help us with this / We could really use your help / I helped you when you were depressed, now it's your turn
When I'm depressed, I can't. I simply can not. And guilt trips will breed resentment. Besides, I self-guilt myself better than anyone else can. When I'm hypomanic, I will absolutely help, but at a cost, because I tend to overcommit when I'm hypomanic. And my emotional cycles work such that at the height of my hypomania, something insignificant will happen and trigger a crash. Within literally minutes, I can go from laughing extrovert to sobbing negative self-worth. I do my best to hide it. If I'm in public, I find a restroom and ride out the initial crash there. If you know I have a lot going on, please consider not asking me to do something more. Or ask me to do it when I'm in a better emotional state.

Depression and bipolar sites

2007-02-06T07:14:00.000-05:00

I'd written here that one of my commenters had a good site "with lots of references and links to others writing about depression and related mental health issues." Ayelet noticed that I didn't actually say what the site was, so I'm doing so now. It's From La La Land and lists its intent as

"For those who suffer from depressive disorders, as well as for their loved ones, to share thoughts, frustrations, joys, research, treatments, articles, books, studies, etc."

There is an entry on this site about the effect of depression on creativity from CBS Cares. I linked to CBS Cares earlier though a different article. I thought this was interesting because I find that I'm most creative when I'm just going into or coming out of a depression, but rarely when I'm in the middle of it and rarely when I'm in a hypomanic state because I'm too busy volunteering for things I can't say no to when I'm hypomanic. I get a lot done but little of it is creative.

Another site I found through a comment to an article on bipolar linked on this site is specifically on bipolar disorder and creativity. I'm glad all these famous people can go public with their disorder and be respected for it. I wish I could. Then again, I'm not famous.

There is also an entry on the worst things to say to someone who is depressed, and I thought I would make my own list based on things that people have actually said to me. It can be part of my What I would want my congregation to know series.

Finally I want to mention this site for those who are unfamiliar with what bipolar disorder even is. Most people when they talk about bipolar are talking about Bipolar I, characterized by low depressions and very high mania. This is not what I have. I have Bipolar II which is very low depressions and mild (hypo) mania. I think this may be why the antidepressants work some for me. But they obviously don't work completely. And I don't want to go back on the bipolar meds I used to be on. That was a nightmare. I may write more about that some other time.

Four more hours

2007-02-06T06:48:00.000-05:00

I'm shaking. My hands are trembling and my legs feel weak and it's hard to think. Facing the day seems so huge, so difficult. I've barely slept the past few nights, a few hours here and there, and the anxiety that comes with my depression sometimes reaches the point of being unbearable.

Yesterday my husband worked from home while I somehow made it through the day. I read a lot and thought a lot about my Depression as adversary post, if that would work as well in practice as it seemed to in theory. I still like the theory, but it seems I still need tools to fight the adversary. The perspective itself is not enough.

Today my husband is back at work and offered to come home early to run some errands so I don't have to leave home. I am grateful to him for that. I just need to breathe and calm myself through the next four hours.

I sent email to four friends yesterday. It was a big step. I summarized what was going on. I said this particular depressive episode was probably the worst one in three years, which my husband originally observed. I said I was slowly climbing out but not ready to be social yet. I didn't talk about my diagnosis or get into any more detail other than going through a depression. I didn't ask them for anything. I'm not sure what I would ask for.

One friend who knows me very well replied and was sympathetic. I haven't yet heard from the other three.

Torah, depression, sensitivity and blog rolls

2007-02-05T17:45:00.000-05:00

One of my commenters has a really cool site with lots of references and links to others writing about depression and related mental health issues. He added my blog to his blog roll and I thank him.

I know others have added my blog as well, and I can't say how grateful I am for their support. It really does make a difference to get that reality check from others, like when I pull out a 2000 year old theological world view and attempt to apply it to depression and wonder if I'm the only person on the planet to whom this makes sense.

It helps when others validate hurts and reject fears I'm equally afraid to claim. It helps to know people care.

I do read others' blogs, sometimes for an escape from my own inner battles, sometimes looking to see if and what others are blogging about depression, sometimes because I'm intrigued by a comment I see on my or someone else's blog.

I'd love to start a blog roll of all the blogs I find consistently interesting or funny or helpful or reflecting my own pain in different words. I've read blogs that brought me from tears to laughter, blogs that make me feel like everyone else is just as messed up as I am or I'm no more messed up than the rest of the world, blogs in which women try to protect their children from the harsh realities of war just beyond their doorstep, blogs where men teach themselves to cry and in doing so find their full humanity, blogs in which men and women argue respectfully about Jewish legal issues that will likely never be resolved in my lifetime.

I'd love to start a blog roll of these but I can't. I'd love to start a blog roll of all those who have linked to me or comment frequently but I can't. I know many bloggers have blog rolls and it's entirely appropriate for them on their blog. I don't think it's appropriate on my blog. The reason is how I live this:

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan."
(Sh'mot 22:20-21)

"You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings (soul) of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt."
(Sh'mot 23:9)

I was one of those kids that all of the other kids liked to pick on. I was frequently picked last for sports teams unless some other poor soul was more reviled than I was. By high school when my depression became a life-threatening force, I was at the height of unpopularity. I know how it feels to be left out, passed over, forgotten, invisible.

Because I know how it feels, especially because this is the sort of thing that depression exacerbates to an infinite degree, I try very hard never to cause someone else to feel that way because of my choices, my words or my actions.

And because this is a blog about depression, about the bad feelings as well as the good, about how life's experiences can become twisted and viciously self-belittling through a depressive lens, I'm even more aware than ever of the possibilities should I start a blog roll of some blogs but not others.

I never want someone to feel hurt or left out because I didn't add them to my blog roll. And while many of those reading here may not be the type of people to care or be hurt, I have no way of knowing that.

There's one other thing. Emotional disorders are sadly a stigmatized reality. Many, including me, don't feel safe going public with it (ergo the anonymity). Some commenters who may maintain blogs of their own having nothing to do with depression and therfore post anonymously could not be added to a blog roll without violating their need for safety.

As a result, I have decided not to create a blog roll. I have a few links to (American) national organizations and I might expand that list, but it will remain with organizations and not individual blogs.

I will continue to post links to individual posts on others' blogs that I believe are appropriate here, and I continue to appreciate all of your very welcome support on this blog and your understanding of my position on this topic.

Depression as adversary

2007-02-04T16:08:00.000-05:00

It seems clear from the last several posts that I need a tool to help me make sense of when my thinking is from the depression and when it's not. I've also written several things about my depression that follow a kind of theme:

it breaks me down and consumes me and spits out what's left, and
I have this black cloud over my head or in my head and I can't see (both from here)
[it] takes that and twists it all around, that I don't deserve success, that my faults are too many, that I'm simply not good enough (from here)
I'm ... under the influence of my unstable emotions (from here)
It left me questioning my contribution to my marriage, my contribution to anyone, my value to the world (from here)
It's that I just feel less. Less everything that is meaningful to me, and
It diminishes everything important. It corrodes what makes my life meaningful and powerful and profound. It eats away at what makes me me (both from here)

And then over Shabbat I had a weird spark of an idea. Too often I see my depression as me, as the same thing as me. What if I thought of it as something else? My words above follow a theme of something taking over, blinding my reason and destroying what's important to me, who I am. What if I solidified that concept?

Not like a multiple personality thing. I don't need that on top of everything else. But it feels like an internal battle when I'm dealing with the depression, a fight to stay in the moment, a fight that sometimes requires sacrifices and casualties. What if it really is?

What if my depression is my own personal adversary?

R. Shimon b. Lakish stated: "A person’s evil inclination gathers strength against him every day and seeks to kill him" (Sukkah 52b).

The yetser hara, evil inclination, and adversary were often considered the same thing in Talmudic times. I don't hear a lot about it today, but the idea holds a certain amount of promise the way I think. I'm not saying that the depression, or more specifically the ~~bipolar II (depression/hypomania)~~ major depression/generalized anxiety disorder with OCD features/seasonal affective disorder (as of April 2007), isn't real, or that it doesn't need medical treatment. Medication and therapy are a given. It's more about perspective.

If I change my perspective, start thinking of the terrible, self-demeaning things I think about myself as coming from the depression/adversary then I have a way to fight it, resist it. I can picture the adversary/yetser hara/depression/black cloud trying to break me down, trying to get me to do harm to myself, trying to kill my spirit at least. I can see the real me differently. I can find answers in Torah, and Tehillim of course. I can ask G-d for help.

In my current flawed perspective it seems to give more legitimacy to my asking others for support.

Please don't misunderstand. I have never believed in a source of evil except perhaps for human choices, and I don't intend to start now. This isn't some demon from the dark side wrestling for possession of my soul. It is brain-based and comes from within me. But the perspective of seeing it as the manifestation of my yetser hara, my adversary, allows me to see the real me as something different, something better.

Something worth saving.

Please help me think rationally

2007-02-02T16:25:00.000-05:00

I read something recently about reasons to dissuade potential converts and money was one of the reasons. If someone couldn't afford what it would cost to be Jewish (ritual items, shul dues, donations, schools, clothing, mikvah, Pesach food, etc) then they shouldn't convert no matter how much they may want to be Jewish or how much they love Judaism and Jews. Because the community has enough of "their own" to support financially.

I'm afraid to think this could apply to emotional needs as well.

Assuming an acceptable, halachically valid conversion, no matter that the convert is supposed to be now accepted as if he or she were born Jewish, are converts still sort of like second-class citizens when it comes to their needs because the community has enough of "their own" (born Jewish) to support, even emotionally?

Even given my history (my maternal grandmother was born and initially raised Jewish, yet through a convoluted family history involving a mysterious death, betrayal, adoption, and antisemitism, she was later baptized and rasied Christian), I fear that I have no right to ask the community for help, for support. They have enough of "their own" to worry about.

Is this the depression talking? Is this irrational thinking that's all twisted? Or is it true and I have no one? Who do I turn to? Where do I go for help?

What happened II

2007-02-02T13:50:00.000-05:00

(Continued from What happened I)

I stayed through Mother's Day. When I'd planned the trip, it seemed like an appropriate thing to do, to be with my mom on the first Mother's Day without her husband, my father.

But I was invisible. The entire time I was with my mom, from the time I arrived on the flight until I left to go home, not one single person acknowledged that I was in mourning. It was all about how much my mom hurt, how close my brother had been to my dad and how my brother was taking it really hard. My mom gave my brother things of my father's. She gave me nothing. No one at any point offered to care for my children so I could take a nap or cry or even shower. I was on my own and alone, surrounded by people who didn't see me.

On Mother's Day, no one there wished me a Happy Mother's Day. My husband sent me a text message. My brother paid the check for dinner, saying, well, you are a mother too. My own mother, my mother-in-law, my two aunts and two uncles who were there, my cousin, never acknowledged that I was a mother, and I had my children with me there at dinner.

My children and I flew home. I had arranged with my rabbi to have a minyan at shul to mark the end of shloshim, thirty days after my father's death. Especially since I couldn't have a shiva minyan earlier. A couple of friends said they'd make phone calls to announce it. It didn't happen quite that way. For whatever reason, people didn't get called. When the prearranged time came, there were four of us.

I felt horribly let down, even more unseen. I felt like no one cared, though I found out later people were sad they didn't know or they would have come. It hurt, to have gone through everything with my mom and then not be supported by my own community. It still hurts.

I told my husband last night through my sobbing that if I don't tell anyone about my depression, there's still an illusion that people would help if they knew. I could console myself with that illusion. But if I tell people and they leave, then I don't even have that illusion anymore.

I think talking with my friend, who was one of the four at the would-be-minyan, brought all this up again. Now I just need to figure out how to fix it.

What happened I

2007-02-02T13:07:00.000-05:00

I don't want to whine or complain. I do want to explain. I want to put words to this so I can maybe get through it and leave it behind me.

I am not much better than I was last night but I think I know what happened. The friend I visited who had just lost her father was in a similar horrible position as I was almost three years ago. Father not Jewish, funeral planned for a week or more away, at loose ends and shiva won't start until after the funeral. What's a Jewish mourner to do?

I think talking with her brought up so much of what I experienced when my father (alav hashalom) died. Please indulge me while I offer a summary of what happened.

My father died suddenly and unexpectedly from a massive heart attack half a country away. He was alone and outside, working on a piece of machinery. I had talked to him only the day before, planning his and my mom's visit to see their second grandchild for the first time since birth. My husband, my children and I all had walking pneumonia. The doctor forbade us from flying for at least a week, but my mom said that was okay. Family was scattered all across the country; she planned a memorial service for three weeks away, to give everyone time to arrive.

Three weeks of mourning before the memorial service. All I could think of was Tisha b'Av. There was no actual funeral; he was cremated. Ergo, no way to know when shiva would begin. I couldn't bear to wait three weeks to begin shiva. There's a technical term for this, my rabbi said, for the time between knowing about the death and waiting for the funeral. I can't remember it. I just know it's a horrible limbo sort of feeling.

I flew out with my children as soon as the doctor allowed. I had been in daily contact with my mom all this time, helping her through losing her life partner of almost half a century. As much as I disliked it, I helped her plan the memorial service that would take place in her church. She asked me to write a eulogy, which I did. I used words from Yizkor toward the end.

When I arrived, I was met with instant hostility. None of this Jewish stuff, my mom warned me. I even had to hide the Magen David necklace that I almost never take off. The children and I stayed with my mother-in-law for several days. I thought maybe it would be a chance for us to bond a bit more. But she was busy with her own life and when we were in the house together, she was more interested in playing with her three dogs and watching TV. I developed severe allergies to literally inches of dog hair on every surface and had to go stay with my mom, a woman who'd been a legitimate threat to my physical person during my childhood and teen years.

Minutes after she picked the children and me up, she lit into me. She would not stand for my "picky" eating habits. If I didn't want to eat what she had in her house, I could go starve for all she cared. She was in mourning, and was not in the mood to deal with my insistence on keeping kosher. She didn't want to hear anything that sounded even vaguely like Hebrew. If her Christian prayers weren't good enough for me, then I should keep my mouth shut. And if she saw my star necklace, she'd rip it off my neck and destroy it.

I had no choice. I had no money, no place to stay. I withdrew into myself and focused on my children. Aunts, uncles, other family were equally hostile and made public derrogatory comments about my being Jewish. Some of it was just ignorance. Some of it was clearly malicious. I wanted more than anything to just fly home. But we weren't even to the memorial service yet.

My mom and brother and I had to meet with the pastor of the church the morning of the memorial service. He wanted us to hold hands and bow our heads and say a prayer. I refused. He didn't understand. I was going to tell him the truth. I can't participate in your prayers because I'm Jewish. I have my own prayers. But my mom interrupted and told him to continue without me. At the end of his prayer, when he made the sign of the cross for all participants, I turned away. I didn't want a cross.

After we left his office, she said horrible things to me, how I'd humiliated her in front of her pastor, how I was being selfish and ungrateful and maybe it would have been better if I'd never flown out.

I don't know what happened

2007-02-01T23:48:00.000-05:00

This afternoon went okay; I was fine, my friend is coping as well as can be expected. I spent some time this evening ~~cursing~~ tweaking my computer. Things were good so long as I stayed out of my emotions. And then something happened and I don't know what and it all came out. I wanted so badly to do harmful things to myself. I didn't. But I wanted to so bad.

I got one of those animated e-cards from a friend today saying she missed me and was here for me. I saw so clearly that she cares, that there are wonderful, loving, caring people out there and all I can think is WHY?? People are not supposed to care about me, that's what I learned years ago over and over again. I want to be witty and warm and thoughtful and generous and intelligent and helpful and maybe even a tiny bit wise and humble, of course humble, but I can't when I have this black cloud over my head or in my head and I can't see.

I can't tell people I have this thing because when it breaks me down and consumes me and spits out what's left, I'm afraid no one wants to see that or be near it. I want to tell my friend of the e-card but she's one of the few close local friends I have and if she knew, really knew, then I might not have that friendship anymore.

...... yeesh, now I'm getting all self-critical and I hate this post and I just want to tear it down and pretend tonight didn't happen but I promised myself I'd give this a try, be honest with what I'm really feeling and stop hiding it from everyone and I can't do that if I'm hiding it from here too. I just want the hurting to stop.

Setback or truth?

2007-02-01T15:05:00.000-05:00

The past 24 hours have gone so well that I was really hoping this was it. Now I'm not so sure.

My husband is at a training seminar and has a class tonight so I'm on my own today. I was worried about coping, about some other more mundane things going on in my life, and I wound up barely dozing between 3 and 5 this morning. I don't feel tired. Just like a failure.

I received word that the parent of a friend of mine died and though shiva doesn't begin until next week, she would like visitors. The pain surrounding my father's death is still fresh, still not processed I guess, but this friend was one who was there for me then. The least I can do is be there for her, so I'm going to visit this afternoon. And even though I'm very comfortable with her, it scares me. I don't know how well I'll hold up. I don't know how much I'll be able to give.

I was finally able to return to some work today and it felt good to have that bit of control. But without going into details, I have to deal with a lot of competition. Every time I see someone else's success, I'm really happy for them because I know how much work had to go into their success. At the same time I'm sad, because I wonder if I'll ever share it.

The depression takes that and twists it all around, that I don't deserve success, that my faults are too many, that I'm simply not good enough.

At least I think it's the depression. I hope it's the depression, because if it's not, that means all these things I don't want to believe are true.

Little successes

2007-01-31T11:27:00.000-05:00

It may be a small thing for most people, but I emptied the (clean) dishwasher, filled it with a sinkfull of dirty dishes, rinsed and set aside recyclables, and washed down the counter today. For me, knowing what the last week has been like, it was a big step.

I despise a dirty kitchen. In my mind, nothing says "I'm a slob" like dirty dishes and garbage all over the place. Not to call anyone else a slob. Just me. I'm the last person who should be judging others. So cleaning it is a very positive sign.

I've been taking the increased dose of my meds as mentioned here for just over a week now, and that's about right. It usually takes a week to notice a difference. Which means I might actually be climbing out of this thing.

It worries me to think that I usually go through one of these just prior to Pesach, too. Maybe I won't this time, but October, January, and late March are frequently difficult months. Maybe I should just plan to increase my meds in mid-March.

Will I still blog when I get (even temporarily) better?

Absolutely. Because it needs to be said that I'm not depressed all the time. I have hard weeks and even months, but it's not all the time. It's not forever. And I want to be able to honestly share what I'm like when I'm not under the influence of my unstable emotions.

That said, I still have one big issue that came up this time, one I really need to deal with before I go back to "normal" life and come out of my shell. It's still morning. Maybe I can write more about it yet today.

Out in public in a big way

2007-01-31T00:06:00.000-05:00

I went to a lecture tonight. It was very good, and I took six pages of notes. At the end, the lecturer took questions, and somehow my curiosity about an aspect of the (Jewish) topic outweighed my desire to isolate. I raised my hand and he called on me. He called on me out of about six others.

Have you ever really met someone's eyes, someone you don't know, and there's this sort of lock for a couple of seconds? Maybe not. I have, and it almost always results in some weird sort of contraction in my stomach, like I know we've seen each other. Anyway, that happened.

I managed to get my question out without stuttering or stumbling or forgetting what I wanted to ask. He spent some time answering it, confirming an observation I made as part of my question's basis.

And then after the lecture was over, I introduced myself to the primary organinzer for the lecture, someone I knew a dozen years ago, though we'd lost touch since. And then I had my copy of the lecturer's book autographed and I talked to him and he said my question "was a really good question, one of the better ones" he'd had when talking on this topic.

I was shaking after I talked to him. Just trembling. I went, I talked to people, I made a concerted attempt to include others who were on the periphery of a conversation prior to the lecture, I asked a question in a room of probably 300 people, I talked to the lecturer. And all this while still feeling like I could dissolve into tears with the right trigger.

I know my "public face" is still usable, still strong. It just hurts to put it on sometimes. Tonight it wasn't so bad. And then--and then--I met another woman I sort of know who asked me, how are you? I said okay. And she said, hmmmm, no, how are you? After getting over my surprise I said the party line was I'm okay. The truth is a much longer story. It's been a hard month. And then she said she wanted to help, or more specifically, she wanted to pursue a friendship.

I don't completely understand. This gets into a much bigger more difficult thing that I can't quite write about yet. Maybe tomorrow. I like this woman, and I'd like to get to know her better. But I fear inviting her into a friendship where my disorder lurks. I don't know what to do.

Shul

2007-01-30T12:48:00.000-05:00

Someone commented about how it sounded that shul was a very important part of my life.

It is.

I hope someday to find better words so I can adequately explain what it means to me. I've never been one to get particularly involved in the federations and the community centers and the political or financial aspects of the Jewish community. Sometimes I think about it, but with my occasionally unstable emotions, I just think it might not be a good idea.

But shul is different. Religious Judaism is different. You can define religious however you want, whatever part of the spectrum of observance you're on.

For me it's about going through life sometimes confidently certain of and other times desperately dependent on a connection, a living covenant with
G-d.

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but years ago, I wanted to be a secretary or administrative assistant at a synagogue. Just so I could be there every day. I volunteered in a shul before I had children and it was indeed fulfilling. Even when all I was doing was answering the phone and taking messages. It was great until I hit one of my emotional speedbumps and I was three months recovering.

I don't want the equivalent of a Jewish convent. I don't want to sequester myself away and spend my life 24/7 in prayer. That's not appealing. To me, shul is the center of religious Jewish life. It's the source of learning and teaching and prayer and community. It's the source of so much that's important to me. It's also the source of family.

I mentioned here that I don't have much contact at all with my biological family. I've had to adopt new family. They're at shul. Sometimes they don't see it that way, and it can hurt when, for Pesach as an example, the people I feel close to are inviting biological family for sederim and then the reality hits that my family ties to the shul are tenuous and emotional. My husband has little family left and none are close. Pesach is a hard time for lots of other reasons, but the annual temporary loss of adoptive family is one I've never talked about.

Still, shul remains the center. My center.

Inconsistent

2007-01-30T12:31:00.000-05:00

I know I said here that I wanted a break, wanted to withdraw. That's true.

Then here I asked you to say hi and sit for a while. That's true too.

And the inconsistency is bothering me. I can't quite figure out why it's inconsistent or why it bothers me, but it seems to be and it does.

I had a hugely painful night last night. I touched a nerve somewhere about giving and taking and selfishness and the ability to accept help. It left me questioning my contribution to my marriage, my contribution to anyone, my value to the world. It was all very much in doubt, and I think it's because I finally put my finger on a topic so central to healing. I cried hard enough to rupture blood vessels around my eyes.

I'd been worried about someplace I had to be today but my youngest woke in the middle of the night with a fever and sore throat. It hurts to see him sick, yet at the same time I couldn't help but think that, with the timing, G-d "works in mysterious ways."

I won't have to leave home until tonight when I'm attending, G-d willing, a lecture on a Jewish topic dear to me. I can't elaborate, but I'm looking forward to going. And I think it will be quite well attended and I can hide in the crowds. It's easy to be alone in a large group of people.

Mandy! [sigh]

2007-01-30T00:23:00.000-05:00

Since I earlier mentioned Mandy Patinkin's TV spot on depression (and his effect on my pulse), I thought maybe I could dig it up.

It's here:

http://www.cbs.com/innertube/player.php?cat=&vid=17581&amp;amp;format=rmwmv&auto=0&source=0

Part of the CBS Cares public service announcements, there is also more detailed information here:

http://www.cbs.com/cbs_cares/depression/

P.S. Yes, my husband gave his support for this post and its title before I posted it. :)

Silent readers

2007-01-29T20:53:00.000-05:00

I know there must be a bunch of silent readers out there who have stopped by here to read. I hope you're able to take something useful away. I hope maybe in some small way I can help you reach out to people you know and care about who are dealing with depression.

I changed the comments so you can now leave anonymous comments. There's no way to trace who you are. Even the statistics counters aren't that good. Please consider saying hi. Or if there's something that I could write about that would be useful, please say so. I can't promise I will, but knowing what you'd find helpful would help me.

Take a seat. Rest for a few minutes. Have a hot beverage.

If you were to meet me in real life, we couldn't have this conversation, talking so openly and honestly about depression. I could be just like your sister, your daughter, your friend.

Hi. My name is Rivka.

Conflicted

2007-01-29T20:28:00.000-05:00

I'm so conflicted today. I haven't wanted to go anywhere since shul. I just want to stay home, read to my children, read to myself, sleep, read blogs. I'm supposed to be somewhere tomorrow and I don't want to go. I really don't want to go. But I'm obligated to give another woman and her child a ride and my youngest will benefit from this, too. I just don't want to leave the house.

So much of me is saying stay home, curl up, feel protected, safe. But I keep checking blogs, mine and others, for new material, comments, some sense of interaction. I don't know how much I really want to isolate. Or if I want only safe interaction. I just don't know.

That urge to curl up and hide away is so strong. Lose myself in a book or a movie. I've been making sure I get up and dressed, comb my hair, eat, brush my teeth. I've managed some time for prayer when I didn't end up sobbing. But the thing I want most is a break from the world.

Yesterday, my husband told me about a conversation he had with a mutual friend at shul on Shabbat. He'd told the friend I was going through a fairly deep depression. The friend asked if he could help and my husband said just knowing people cared helped. Then my husband said when this had passed, they (he and his friend) were probably overdue for a drink.

I asked him where my drink was for making it through this. I hadn't even finished the question when my mind came back with, you don't get a drink. You just get to stop feeling so sad. Stop complaining. Can't you see what a drain you are on him? Of course he needs to get out and vent.

It just hurt so much to think that. It still does. Even though my husband assured me I wasn't a drain, I'm not so sure I believe him. If I am a drain, then my taking a break from the world would be in everyone's best interests. I don't want to be a drain, a liability, the proverbial wet blanket. If I could snap myself out of this, I would. In a heartbeat.

It's been a week now since this got bad. I want the hurting to stop. I want to stop draining everyone and contribute something instead. I want to stop seeing myself as damaged goods. I want a break.

Depression, OCD and Judaism: a case study

2007-01-29T00:16:00.000-05:00

I happened across this article tonight and thought it was worth sharing. While I don't have OCD itself, I've mentioned before that my hypomanic states can sometimes bring some OCD-like tendencies. She's also dealing with depression and "feelings of guilt for adding to her husband’s responsibilities."

I can completely see where this woman is coming from.

Treating an Orthodox Jewish Woman With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Maintaining Reproductive and Psychologic Stability in the Context of Normative Religious Rituals

Less

2007-01-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

When I talked to my rabbi yesterday, I said something I knew made no sense and was entirely untrue. But the well of emotion behind it, the tears that broke through as I said the words, indicated I was on to something.

What I said was this: I feel like having this problem [depression/bipolar] makes me somehow less Jewish.

He gave me a look that said there wasn't a shred of truth to that statement.

The Jewish community has only recently begun to address the issue of mental health; American society at large has only begun to address depression as a medical illness. (I just saw a TV commercial with Mandy Patinkin talking about depression as a medical illness. Not only was he doing a public service, he made my heart do a little skip with those deep brown eyes.) Even despite this, there is an overriding sense, an expectation, that we Jews simply don't have problems like that. More about this later. It's too big an issue for me to deal with right now.

I thought about this feeling of being "less Jewish" because of my wacky brain chemistry. And I realized there was more to it. I also feel like I'm not as good a mother. Not as good a wife, a friend, a contributor to society, and so on.

It's not that I feel somehow less Jewish. It's that I just feel less. Less everything that is meaningful to me.

That's the depression talking, I'm sure. And I see now what it does. It diminishes everything important. It corrodes what makes my life meaningful and powerful and profound. It eats away at what makes me me.

I need to find a way to reclaim myself. Take back what it's taking away. That's where things get complicated, unfortunately. Because my parents took away too. I've been fighting for twenty years to reclaim what they took. My self-esteem. My confidence. My security. My innocence.

If the depression makes me feel less than, it only exacerbates the wounds already there. For all I know, they feed off each other.

My experience has taught me that I have to work harder than everyone else to prove myself. To prove that I'm good enough. It's exhausting. It means I fall harder when less than comes around. But I don't know any other way to do it. Between my wacky brain chemistry and my history, there is no such thing as being good enough simply because I'm me. It doesn't exist. It's all about the struggle. The struggle to succeed, to move forward, to be happy, to give, to understand, to be.

A friend who knows a little bit of my ups and downs e-mailed me and said, when can we get together? I miss you.

My first thought was, Why? What is there to miss? Isn't it a relief not to have to deal with me?

I told my counselor that. She said that's the depression. And probably my history, too. It's big. And it might just be a key to getting better.

I cried at shul

2007-01-28T01:00:00.001-05:00

Against my instincts to stay hidden, stay unseen while I'm feeling so much pain, I went to shul. I didn't really want to go. I knew I needed to go.

I went figuring I could hold it back, hide it, drag out my public face again. But on the way there, I remembered D's words:

"From everything you've said, Rivka, you might as well have had a neon sign above your head flashing DON'T ASK ME ABOUT ME. You didn't give anyone an opportunity, much less an opening. If you want someone to come in and sit down and have a real conversation with you, not just idle chat, you have to at least unlock the door."

Opportunity and opening, I thought. If I really want help, if I really want what I'm saying here that I want, I have to give them opportunity and opening. I have to give the congregation and the rabbi the chance to be successful. Only I can do that. If I hide it and no one notices, and I'm consequently angry or resentful or hurting because no one saw the hurt, then it's because I set them up to fail. That's not fair to any of us.

So okay. I won't lie. I won't hide. But I don't have to advertise it, either. That was my plan.

Have you ever noticed how seldom things go "according to plan"? Especially when G-d is involved?

My husband told me later that I had no sooner walked in when people wanted to know what was wrong. I didn't think it showed that much. But I was avoiding eye contact, to keep it together.

I made it before Kriat Sh'ma. Even my whisper had tears in it. Halfway through the Shacharit Amidah, I couldn't keep it in. I was silent, but my body was trembling, shaking, and I couldn't stop it. Rogue tears darkened the pages of my siddur.

I had better luck during the Torah service. I can get distracted easily by a good book. But then at the Chatzi Kaddish I lost it again. It was all I could do to stay upright. I barely remember the Haftarah. Ashrei did not make me happy. I silently sobbed my way through Musaf.

And in the midst of this, I don't even remember when exactly--it was all a blur, the rabbi called me aside and said, can you stay a few minutes after shul so we can talk?

Opportunity, I reminded myself. Opening. Don't run from this. Don't hide. Don't ask the question if you're not willing to accept the answer. I said yes.

After shul a few people came up to me. A couple asked how I was doing. One woman said she didn't mean to pry and if I wanted to be alone, that was okay, she wouldn't be offended, but it looked like I was hurting and did I want to talk? We talked a little, nothing about how I was feeling. I didn't want to get into it right then. But I accepted her gesture of friendship and was deeply touched.

And then the rabbi approached me, to see if I would talk with him. I said I would. We went to a quiet, yet still public, space. He asked me, what's going on?

That was the question I didn't know how to answer. That's what makes this whole thing so [insert profane word of your choice here] hard. Because there is nothing going on. No marital problems. No financial problems (far from rich, but at least we're not broke right now). No unemployment. No acute illnesses. All's well with my external world, baruch Hashem. The problem is all in my head.

So I told him. I told him in record time (about four minutes--there was a clock on the wall) about my far-too-few ups and my far-too-many downs and how this time was a really bad one. I told him about reliving the memories around my father's death, about some of the horrible things I had to hear and experience in the aftermath. I told him about my counseling sessions, that I had a good counselor but I was missing the Jewish piece, something she simply couldn't give me. I told him about the medication, about how it works most of the time and what happens when it doesn't. I told him about needing to stay in the moment, about the ice cream headache without eating any, about how fifteen years ago I stayed in the moment by cutting myself and now I resorted to less bloody means.

I watched him wince as I said that.

He asked some questions, ran through some ideas. I think he said he wanted to meet with me this week, that he'd make time, but now, some eleven hours later, I'm not sure if he still wants that or if that was only if I wasn't up to talking today.

We've got to get you better, he said. He made a misheberach for me. It was evident in every movement, every word, his deep sigh when I finished telling my story, his wince when I talked about the cutting, that he cared. That he hurt for me.

It was very hard for me. It was frightening, being that open. But it was a relief, too. It brought a tiny ray of hope. I just don't know if I can risk being hurt by holding on to that.

Going through the motions

2007-01-26T17:04:00.000-05:00

I'm still exhausted and numb from this past week.

Yesterday's counseling session went well. My counselor said in all the time I've been seeing her (a few years), she's never seen me cry in a session, until yesterday. I thought I had one other time, but still, if it's twice in a few years, that says something. I guess I have strong defenses.

Today I have no motivation, no energy, no anticipation for Shabbat. I yearn for the times when the rituals are meaningful and powerful. Today I'm afraid I'll just be going through the motions.

I'm a little anxious about going to shul tomorrow. I'm not sure if I really want to be seen right now or not. If I am, I'm not sure how I'll handle it. If I'm not, will it be a disappointment or a relief? I don't know.

A good Shabbos to all.

Rivka FAQ

2007-01-26T14:30:00.000-05:00

Questions:

I need to repeat one of my statements from my first post about who I am and why I'm blogging:

This is an anonymous blog. It needs to be such, or I would lose the ability to share my truth, whether anyone else wants to read it or not. Please do not spend time trying to figure out who I am. It will do none of us any good.

There is some information I cannot share, even though it may seem like it wouldn't risk anonymity. To those who don't know me, it wouldn't affect my anonymity at all. To those who might know me and happen across this blog, it would absolutely be a risk. And what I say on this blog about what's going on inside of me must be anonymous, especially from those who know me. The only people in the world I've told that I'm keeping this blog are my husband and my counselor. I don't plan to change that.

I know from reading other anonymous blogs, in particular ones that deal with issues so many of us face, there is a tendency to wonder, "Is she like me?"

There is also a tendency to ask, "How can I help you make this easier?"

In this post, I want to address those and related questions.

1. What kind of shul do you go to? / How observant are you?

I go to a small/medium size shul with only one rabbi in a medium/large size city. I don't want to answer the "what sort of Jew are you?" question because it could change how you see me. If I get into that, no matter who sees me, I'm either going to be too frum or too liberal. Nothing is going to change the fact that being an adult Jew with a family and an emotional disorder has some challenges.

2. If your maternal great-grandmother was Jewish, why did you have to convert?

I didn't have anything other than half a dozen stories that sounded suspiciously Jewish that my grandmother had shared years earlier about her early childhood when I approached my rabbi for conversion. All I knew was that from my earliest memories, I didn't belong. I hated church, and I was starving for a religious expression that fit. It wasn't enough to just be "spiritual." I found my way to Judaism as a teenager and never went back. A few years after my conversion, my mom finally went through some of the photographs and papers passed along when my grandmother (aleha hashalom) died. We found a series of letters between my great-grandmother and her brother from 1910-1925 that left no doubts about their being Jewish.

3. How did your mom take that? / How did this discovery change your extended family?

My mom still doesn't accept it. She says she doesn't acknowledge Jewish law. She was raised a Christian and that's all there is to it. I went through some very difficult times with extended family because they were certain I was putting my soul in jeapordy, rejecting eternal life, by embracing Judaism. I was equally certain that I was finally bringing my soul home. Due in large part to my being Jewish, I have almost no contact with my extended family. It was their choice. If I wasn't going to join them for Christmas and Easter, I wasn't invited any other time. It was worth the sacrifice. I don't regret my choices for a second.

4. If your father wasn't Jewish and your mother identifies as a Christian, how did you deal halachically with your father's death? / You've stated elsewhere that your father was cremated; how do you deal with that?

It was very, very hard. One of the hardest experiences I've ever had. And even at almost three years ago, it's still too fresh, too raw to talk about in any detail. Sitting shiva with almost no support beyond my rabbi and a few friends, no funeral, no grave to visit, and being verbally attacked in public about being Jewish when I went to his memorial service (in a church), it was a very dark time.

5. Getting back to depression, is there any chance of starting a support group with other women in your shul?

Probably not. There is a group in the community, not specific to any shul. I went once. It was very much like the situation I found at the Jewish mental health conference I wrote about here. I'm not interested in being part of a group that only wants to complain and play "my disorder is worse than yours." I want to find tangible, practical ways for people in the Jewish community to reach out and help others who need it. Some of the women in our shul are having a hard enough time trying to do the same for their children with severe developmental disorders, without much success. It can only be harder for unseen disorders whose symptoms come and go. Our shul seems to only have success accommodating people with physical disabilities, though I don't think that's through any failure on the rabbi's part. Mostly I think it's people not knowing what to do or being too caught up in their own lives to do what they can.

6. You said you have a creative pursuit that helps you cope, and that you can even sell your creations. What do you create?

I can't go into that. This is one of those things that seems innocuous but isn't. I do have a creative personality and I enjoy participating in all of the arts to the extent that I can.

7. In your post Ha'azina Tefilati, you wrote, "I found my Tehillim and opened to a random page. At least I think it was random." What do you mean you think it was random? Do you believe G-d has an active role in our lives?

I can't speak for G-d, and I can't speak for anyone else. I can only speak my own reality, as I understand it. I did open Tehillim randomly. Obviously, I was going to find a psalm. Maybe I could have opened to any one of a hundred different pages in Tehillim and found something helpful. Viewed one way, it seems almost too coincidental that I should "randomly" open to that page. Maybe I was guided to open it to that page. Maybe that was my answer. I don't know.

I do know that some of my prayers seem to have gone unanswered. Or the answer was no and I could only figure that out eventually because what I asked for never happened. I mentioned that I grew up in a violent home. I don't want to get into details because this isn't a blog about child abuse. I will say that I prayed frequently for the beatings and the cruel words to stop. They didn't until I reached my teens. On a few occasions, it could have been really severe, but things happened that I can't explain, averting a hospital stay or worse. Maybe that was a qualified yes. Maybe I was just lucky.

What I do believe, perhaps because of all of this, is that I have an obligation not only to acknowledge, appreciate, and praise G-d for what I have, but also to ask G-d for what I need. Or what I think I need. And it's my responsibility to accept the answer, whether it's in my favor or not. I think perhaps because I am constantly aware of what G-d has done for me, for others, for all of us, it is ultimately less painful for me to struggle with and accept a "no" from G-d than it is to struggle with a personal rejection from another human being. I don't know why.

People have their own fallibilities, their own problems that affect how they treat others. I'd like to think G-d is beyond all that. I'd like to think that when G-d answers yes or no or something in between, G-d has my ultimate best interests in mind, and the best interests of anyone else involved. So I guess that means yes, I do believe G-d can be involved in our lives. I guess if I believed G-d were distant and remote and our lives were only affected by the laws of nature and physics and other people, then I'd lose faith in the whole concept of prayer.

I mean, maybe prayer is for us and it doesn't matter if anyone is listening or not, but that thought just leaves me feeling so sad and alone. I need to believe G-d cares and hears and acts on G-d's own timetable and if or when G-d deems it appropriate. That doesn't make me angry. It just reminds me that I don't know everything. It isn't up to me.

8. What can we do to help?

Visit my blog. :)
Read.
Leave comments, preferably not anything judgmental or mean.
Share with others.
Practice sensitivity.
Encourage rabbis to be aware of congregants with "invisible pain."
Be willing to talk about emotional disorders within the Jewish community.
Be willing to reach out to people in your own community who might need it.
Brainstorm ways for your own community to keep people from falling through the cracks.

I see we're about out of time

2007-01-25T00:43:00.000-05:00

I see my counselor tomorrow. I've printed out most of my posts, especially from It's here and more recent, for her to read.

I don't want to go. I want to stay at home and not go anywhere. But she needs to know what's going on.

The hardest part is I have to find a way to drive there competently, pay for my session, wait in a room of strangers (it's a clinic), make all the niceties on the way to her office, then drop my defenses, bare my soul, and pick it all back up within 50 minutes so I can drive competently home.

Right. And I wonder why it's so hard to feel in these sessions instead of just thinking.

P.S. I know there are some comments I haven't yet responded to. I will. I'm just trying to get through right now. Thanks for bearing with me.

P.P.S. Responses to comments are now up. A few have gone instead into a FAQ I posted here.

Three words

2007-01-24T22:18:00.000-05:00

"How are you?"

It's a common question. It's innocuous. Often, it's not even said and meant. It's a pleasantry.

I felt well enough this evening to drive for the first time in several days. I spent some time with people I know from shul. I wouldn't say I know them well enough to be friends, but they are people with whom I really enjoy spending time. They are funny and intelligent and considerate and quite often very wise. Someday I'd like to know them well enough to be a friend.

I kept my professional mask, my public face, on during my time with them. It was the only way I could participate. Otherwise I'd be curled up in a corner and that wouldn't be very fun for anyone. And then, as we were leaving, one woman held the door for me and a few others and I heard it.

How are you?

She was talking to me, and I froze. Three little words, and I was terrified. My mouth kicked into autopilot but my body betrayed me.

Okay, I said. But as I said it, I looked down, away, anywhere but at her, so she couldn't see that I wasn't. And then in my head, that critical voice hissed back to me, Liar! And in shul, no less. Liar liar!

I'd held it together most of the day, while my husband was at work and my child was home with me. I managed to only cry once and I kept it to under half an hour. My son asked me if I was still sad because my dad died. (My father, alav hashalom, died almost three years ago.) I said yes because he'd understand.

But I couldn't hold it back now. Three little words and they cut through all my defenses. I bit my lip, stayed in the shadows, tasted blood. Like I said before, pain helps.

And then I cried all the way home. Tears obscuring my vision as I drove in the dark, thankful it was all back roads, no drunk drivers, no children in my car.

I cried and then I distracted myself. I think I should apologize to the woman for my reaction. I wanted to be friendly, but friendly and crushing depression don't mix. Mostly, I just didn't want people to know. But my brusqueness might have hurt or offended her. I don't know.

It physically hurts to expand my awareness outside of my immediate family and my home right now. Staying in my head for now is the only place that doesn't hurt. I don't mean psychic hurt. I mean head-pounding, blinding, migraine sort of hurt.

I just need to hide. And hope that

How are you?

can't find me.

What would I want my rabbi to know? Part 1

2007-01-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

"I want my rabbi to feel comfortable with me, with my disorder..."

Revised 1/28/07

I want my rabbi in particular to feel comfortable enough with me, comfortable enough with my disorder, that when he makes his "rounds" at shul and asks me, how are you?, he looks to see if my words and my silent signals (body language, facial expression, eyes) match.

And if they don't, that he notes the discrepancy. Maybe, if he knows he has some time, he gently suggests I come talk to him. Maybe he simply presses for a more honest answer.

Most importantly, I want him to give me every reason to trust him.

I want to trust him. Completely. And it's not that I don't. It's that I've been hurt. And with my history, it's hard to trust in the first place. That's why I don't always give him a totally honest answer. I don't lie - I couldn't bring myself to do that. But I can say I'm just tired. Or that I'm doing better (when I'm not really yet).

Most times I see him, there are dozens of other people who want to talk to him. I don't know how many want something from him, how many are requesting or even demanding his time, his energy. I see that and I know that there are people going through far worse things than I am. Unemployment, terminal illness, recent death of a loved one. My problems seem insignificant in comparison. So I don't ask. It seems selfish when I'm not even sure what I'm asking for.

A couple of times, I've been really honest. I've said I'm having a really hard time. He says, I'll call you and we'll get together and talk about it. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes I guess it's bad timing. It's so hard to have him reach out, to say let's talk this week, and then feel the crush of disappointment when it has to be rescheduled because something else came up. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth rescheduling. Most times, I don't believe the appointment will really happen until it's already underway.

I know others (men and women) in the shul who learn with him regularly. Weekly, sometimes more than once a week, and not always in a formal class sort of environment. There's a pang of hurt, when I hear this. I wonder if my struggles were with Torah and not with my place in the shul because of my illness, would I feel I have a more legitimate reason to talk with him?

And then there's a pang of guilt. I mean, he's not my therapist. I already have one of those. Even though she's not Jewish and can't give me Jewish answers to my problems. And I know he's busy. Maybe I'm just expecting too much. Maybe I'm looking for Jewish answers in the wrong place.

And then there's a pang of anger. If I can't seek Jewish answers to a huge life-altering challenge from my rabbi, then who can I seek them from?

Once again, I wish I could just send him this post. But I can't risk the anonymity or I couldn't speak freely. If I knew he was reading this blog - and knew who I am - I couldn't write this post. I'd be too afraid of hurting him, no matter how much hurt I'm feeling.

I wish I could just schedule an appointment and tell him all this. Tell him what I need. But I don't trust that what I want, what I think I need, what I wrote at the top of this post, is appropriate. There is no solution. No magic potion. No wonder drug. No verse from Torah or even lines from a psalm that will make this all better.

I'm afraid of not getting in to see him, and at the same time, I don't even know what to ask for. Other than help. And without more detail, that request only sets everyone up for failure.

I'm slipping through the cracks and I'm allowing it to happen because anything else just hurts too much or carries too much risk.

Someday I guess I'm going to have to take that risk anyway and talk to him or show my tears in shul or somehow let it be known that I can only endure so much.

And that scares me to death.