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My love was born at my mother’s breast and in my father’s strong arms. It was a sucking, insatiable, infantile love. I was happily curled in the warm embrace of pure need.

My love was shaped in early days by my need to perform. I worked hard at home, in sports, and at school. I had a first-born child's natural sense that people would love me if I excelled.

My love turned inward and became hidden and personal with a series of best friends. Michael and Mickey and Lance and Steve and Mark and Kenny. We claimed the rights to our own lives and our own loves. We stood together against the world with our secret clubs and inside jokes.

My love thrashed against my arm like a tethered falcon when I discovered the beauty of ponytails and freckled smiles. A series of little girls first turned my head and then turned my guts into jelly. The falcon burst its tether and screeched, circling and diving, causing me to throw myself to the ground in a panic. Bonnie and Carmen and Kathy and Tracy and Diane and Laura and Julie and Elma. How I ached and longed and cried and failed and watched from afar. Waves of feeling rose up in my chest and cast me face-down upon my bed. There was no end to it and no relief because it felt so good and it hurt so bad.

In time I learned the proper words to coax the falcon back to my arm. I slipped the tether around its foot and paraded it about for a few years with an imagined sophistication. Oh yes, I had it all figured out for a time.

And then I went to college and met a woman with a swinging ponytail and brown eyes that were tender and crinkly when she smiled. She sat across from me at the Baylor cafeteria, and when she talked she revealed a certain, indescribable spark of personality that proved irresistible to me. My falcon took one look at her, snapped its tether, and disappeared over the horizon, never to return.

I became foolish again, like a small boy. She carried a basket instead of a backpack. Suddenly I loved baskets, the weave and feel and smell of them. She had pale skin, so pale skin became the loveliest skin in the world as far as I was concerned. Once I was able to pick her out of a crowd of young women in shorts because I recognized her knees. She had a smile that could light up my heart and brown eyes that were too beautiful and powerful for me to understand. I wanted to keep her. I wanted her to be mine. I wanted to hold her and defend her with my life against anything in the world that would harm her.

I had her for a few months, and then I lost her. I was inconsolable and fell into a time of loneliness. I could not feel love for any other woman. I worked. I paid my bills. I prepared to go to seminary.

Then an unexpected letter arrived, causing my heart to thrash about in my chest. There was a near-collision in a supermarket aisle, and then we were sitting on the floor of her apartment, both frightened. She of hurting me and I of being hurt. But our hands moved across the carpet like small creatures with wills of their own. Our fingers entwined, and all the powers of joy and fear and pain and love came together in that moment.

My love became our love. I felt like I had arrived, but the story of my love was only getting started. I now understand that we knew almost nothing of love at that time. For our love had not yet faced the 12 labors of Hercules.

We had to survive financial crisis and the slow loss of the passion of youth. We had to survive the exhaustion of work and responsibilities. And then there came three children, three sucking vortices of need. We had to cling to each other, blue eyes locked on brown, swearing before the heavens that we weren’t going to let these three angelic demons take everything from us. For it is the nature of children to take everything and the duty of parents not to let them.

Years passed, and we aged together. We learned to love our softening bodies with their new demands and needs. Sometimes, when we were very tired, we would say that it was the two of us against the whole world. Friends would change, the children would leave, but our secret club was forever.

Then a tragedy happened. I woke up in a bathtub filled with ice. There were stitches on the left side of my chest and a note that said, “Sorry, but we needed your heart.” I arose, dripping cold water on the floor. I had the face and the look of Gordon, but there was something absent from my eyes. My trademark silliness was gone. And I could not feel any of the happy things. I couldn't feel love or joy. I was numb inside and sometimes angry for no reason.

I carried on by the powers of obligation, duty, and shame. I put one foot in front of the other. I smiled at home and at church. I said the right things to the children. I tried to force myself to be myself, but that never really works. Jeanene learned to live with the zombie version of Gordon, which is its own kind of tragedy.

The doctor called it depression, and he gave me pills. They worked pretty well for a long time. I was happy and my boyish silliness returned. Jeanene and I began reconnecting. Our hands had to crawl across a carpet of fear to find each other, but they did and things were good.

This is so hard to write, but I fear something is wrong again. I’ve slowly lost the ability to feel happiness or love. Once again I have all of the words and none of the feeling. My need to be alone is becoming overpowering. I come home and want to go to bed or sit in a corner. The idea of interacting with people is painful even to think about. Jeanene and the three sisters obviously know something is wrong.

Damn it! I don’t want to do this again. I’m going to have to go back to the doctor and start the process over again. I hate the idea of medication. I hate thinking of myself being dependant on medication.

“Did you remember to pick up your medication?”

“Has anyone seen my medication?”

“Did I take my medicine yet today?”

Medication medication medication medication. Fucking medication. MY medication. Like it’s some treasured personal possession. Like it’s now an essential part of me, like a leg or something.

But I'm going to the doctor. Yes sir. I'm not hesitating this time. I already have the appointment. And I'm going to do whatever he tells me to do. If he gives me pills (and he will) I’ll smile and say, "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"

Because this is the story of my love. Do you understand what I'm saying? This is my love. My love for God and for ideas and for truth and for our church and for writing and for my friends and for the three sisters.

And for Jeanene. It's her love too. I have to remember that. I owe her my best effort to be the man she married.

If I am allowed to live a full live, then half of the story of my love is yet to be told. And I definitely want to be present and alert for part two.

rlp

 

United Church of Christ minister Norman Bendroth describes depression as a "Brainstorm" in the latest online issue of Christian Century. I've written extensively about my own depression - so much that I'm probably going to give it a rest for a time. But I am intrigued by his description of this condition. Remember that depression is just a word we use to describe something that needs a label. It may be a term that needs retiring. Perhaps it has become too loaded and narrow. Others have suggested "depletion" as an alternative. "Irrational Despair and Uncontrollable Thoughts" might be another possibility. Certainly Brainstorm is a term to consider.

a Christian Magazine 
Christian Writing

rlp

 

Yeah, I really regret having posted that last piece. I had second thoughts while writing it, but writing it felt good. Writing about this is one of the ways I deal with it. But I've felt very uncomfortable all day about putting it online. I came close to removing it several times.

Who knows if it was healthy or right to post that. You know, with writing in general and blogging in particular, you never know how much to share. And in times when you feel intense things, you're not in the best frame of mind to make those kind of calls.

So here's the deal: I wrote that. I felt it and I wrote it. I don't know if it was a good or a bad thing. I don't know if it was fair to the people in my real life. It probably would be healthier to go to the people in my life and say, "Um, I'm not feeling so good." That's probably a better move than posting something online.

But I did it. So I'm going to leave it there. Whatever it says about me and my frame of mind in the moment I hit the publish button, I'll accept. But I do need to move quickly past it. I want it to move down the page. Those who commented - thanks. I really need to not reply or anything now. I just need to move ahead.

Thanks for your true love and concern for me. I feel it.

gordon

 

I officially release myself from the need to make this a great piece of writing. I want everything I write to be great, and I find it hard to put anything online unless I’ve gone over it until I don’t want to change anything. That takes a long time.

So not this time. This time it’s just going to come out of me, get a quick going over, and boom – online with it. It will probably be too long, but it would be so hard to edit it down.

----------------------

It seems like just a short time ago that I wrote what I thought would probably be my last piece on depression. I kind of ended that series with me on medication and doing fine. Ended it on a good note.

But something happened last week, and I’m quite frightened by it. I am detached from myself enough to wonder why I’m writing about this and making it public. There must be something in talking to “you” that is like therapy for me. Either that or I’m an emotional exhibitionist. I really don’t want that to be true, but what do I know? Maybe I am an emotional exhibitionist. I don’t even know what that is, but maybe I am.

The hell with it. Here goes.

I had what I will describe as an emotional crash. I had a normal day on Tuesday. I got some writing done, even sent an essay off to Christian Century. I felt fine on the way home, and the evening began as evenings normally do around our house. And then it hit me. It was almost like someone threw a switch in my mind, turning all of my thoughts and feelings in a negative direction.

What surprised me was how rapidly depression, sorrow, and anxiety descended upon me. I don’t ever remember having such a rapid mood swing. One of the girls said something – nothing memorable, just something – and then a wave of sorrow and despair crashed over me. My mood bottomed out in about five minutes.

The feelings I had on Tuesday night are familiar to me since I used to live with those feelings much of the time.

Let’s see if I can describe this for those of you who don’t have this problem.

There is a feeling of hopelessness, a kind of “Oh my God” feeling. It’s the way you would feel if you walked around the corner and found that something precious to you had been destroyed beyond all repair. You stand there shaking your head and looking at the broken pieces of the thing you loved, and in those moments you feel so sad and hopeless. That thing is now broken, and you will never ever have it again.

Remember, I have no reason to feel this way. I KNOW that, but it doesn’t make the feelings go away.

There is also what I would call emotional and mental exhaustion. This would be like the feeling you might have if you worked a 12-hour shift in a factory, then came home to discover that you had 50 hours of mind-numbing, tedious labor yet to do, labor that would also be physically painful so that you would not even be allowed the small comfort of getting lost in the tedium. The point is, you dread this labor intensely.

But remember, there was no labor facing me. This is just a description of how I felt. There is nothing real behind the feeling.

The last feeling is one that is destructive to my relationships. It is the feeling that any contact with anyone is going to make me feel even worse. If I see my girls or Jeanene, I’m going to add a heap of guilt and shame to all that I am already feeling. If I can just be alone – I think - I won’t have to deal with any additional bad feelings. When I am in this state, my need to be alone becomes desperate, almost frantic. If anyone threatens my isolation, I become very resentful toward them. One of the girls can bounce over, all happy and everything, and want me to do something. My reaction is to get angry. Thank God I’ve learned to stuff that anger down, but good. Because I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS OUT ON THEM.

No!

It’s a short-term fix, but stuffing anger, even stupid anger, only fuels depression.

Now amidst all of these feelings are swirling thoughts that are destructive, not based in reality, and paranoid. My mind races from one crazy thought to the next. Um, I think I’d rather not go into the crazy thoughts. Just stuff about relationships and how people feel about me, the reality of what I am facing, financial ruin, and oh yeah some stuff about how I probably can’t write so good no more.

These days I do have one thing going for me. I UNDERSTAND that this is not a normal way of thinking and feeling. I KNOW how I am supposed to think and feel. And I KNOW that these feelings and thoughts are not tied to the reality of my life. Even Tuesday night, right in the middle of the bad time, I BELIEVED that the thoughts and feelings were not going to last.

I gave myself a little pep talk:

“This is probably just a glitch or something, right? I mean, I am taking medication that is dickering with my brain chemistry. It’s probably just a drug fart or something, right? Right? Probably just something like that. Right?”

You know what I did? I went to bed. I used to be able to put on a pretty good act, but now I know that’s a dead end. You can only keep up an act for so long. If you are going to crash, now is as good as a week from now. Might as well get it over with.

I laid on my bed and stared, turning off my mind as best I could. I slipped into a daydream-like state, thinking about things that aren’t true but would be nice if they were true. It was like an internal movie or something. Just the silly fantasies that everyone has. In one of mine I actually write something that makes some money, so Jeanene can come home from work – which she would like to do – and suddenly all the pressure of the children and their care and finding time to write is gone, and I can write as much as I want and everyone lives happily ever after.

You have thoughts like those, right? Sure you do. You do, don’t you? Please tell me it’s not just me.

-------

I got through the rest of the week okay and decided that Tuesday was an isolated event, nothing to worry about. Then I woke up Sunday morning, and it was like Sundays back in the bad days. I was filled with dread, sorrow, and horror. And it was EASTER SUNDAY, for goodness sakes. We were having a potluck breakfast, a fun service, an Easter egg hunt afterwards for kids, and we have a whole bunch of new friends at the church these days, people I am enjoying getting to know.

I should have been happy. Instead I kept waking up, dreading the coming of morning. I finally got out of bed at 3:30 am, showered, and went to the church, having slept maybe an hour. I remember I used to do this before – go to the church hours early so that I could get myself ready for people to arrive.

I did not want to be there. When everyone arrived, I hid in my office while they were eating breakfast. I came out and got through the service. I don’t know. I got through the day. I took a long nap. Watched a movie. Picked up around the house. Did some stuff.

-------

So what does this mean? Am I slipping backwards? What I haven’t told anyone is that I’ve had a couple of these setbacks before, and I’m now taking the maximum dosage of the medication that I’m on. So there is nowhere left to go, chemically. What does that mean? Will I have to try new medication and deal with new, unknown side effects? Is this the moment when I find out that the problem was just my weakness after all, and I need to get up off my ass and get active and start helping people more or whatever so that I can find the source of true happiness and put all this depression/depletion stuff behind me?

No, that’s not it. I’ve tried all that. It doesn’t work, Gordon. You can’t work this stuff away.

I mean, I really don’t know. I don’t want to call the doctor and even get started asking these questions for real. Maybe this will go away on its own. I feel good today I think.

Listen while I talk to myself again:

Okay, apparently something is wrong with my brain. I’ve been told that it’s not a major thing; I just have trouble keeping my neurotransmitters in stock. They must be on backorder or something. This has nothing to do with what kind of a person I am, good or bad. So I have to take some pills. So what? Occasionally I might have a bad day. So what? Tuesday and Sunday were just bad days. So what? Tuesday is gone and so is Sunday. It’s over and today is a new day.

That’s all I know. I’m not all that smart or wise with this stuff. I only know how to describe it. I can’t fix it.

rlp

 

It’s been just about a year since I’ve written about my ongoing struggle with depression.

So how are things, you ask?

Just fine. Good. Mostly good. I think good. I’ve been on Wellbutrin for over a year now. Three little white pills every morning. I don’t ask questions; I just take them.

I think this is the way I’m supposed to feel. I remember feeling like this before. I get happy and excited about things now. I get sad sometimes, but the sadness seems appropriate. It comes and it goes. I’m an introspective kind of guy, so a certain amount of ennui is in my makeup.

So, good I think. I’m feeling good.

But I have lost something over the last two years. What depression took from me was my simple way of thinking about the human psyche. Depression has made things messy for me, and it has made me much more forgiving and gentle when I meet people who are emotionally out of control.

I used to think that the human mind divided neatly into two spheres, a right and a left. It’s a metaphoric division, of course, but yeah, two sides that one imagines could be pulled apart like two halves of an orange. Left brain and right brain. Your basic dualism. That sort of thing.

We think and we feel. We have reason and we have emotion. Of the two kinds of human experience, the emotional part was not to be trusted, as far as I was concerned. Not in relationships; not in daily living; and most of all, not in the spiritual realm. I have always had a deep fear and loathing of overly emotional religion.

Emotion, it seemed to me, was very arbitrary. It often led you in the wrong directions. It made you do things that did not make sense. Whereas the rational part of the human mind was careful and reasoning and able to see truth, even through a fog of emotion.

I proudly labeled myself as a cerebral person. I spent a lot of time thinking and talking and arguing and reasoning. Not so much time feeling things. I thought I was in control of all that silly, emotional stuff. I felt numb, mostly. And I assumed that you weren’t feeling things unless you, well, FELT them.

Oh, you feel things. Here’s a shocker. No one feels things in more dangerous ways than the person who thinks he feels nothing. That’s the guy you have to watch out for.

Jung said it this way: If you do not come to terms with your shadow side, the opposite of your strengths, you will be ruled by that shadow side. I believe that now.  In my case, all of my unexplored feelings were sucked into a vortex of anger. Of course, I was too sophisticated to let my anger out in healthy ways. So I ate my anger. I ate it dry. It was like swallowing unshelled peanuts. It did not sit well in my gut.

That’s when depression exploded my simple ways of thinking. You can say whatever you want about the emotional side of human beings, but emotions rule the day. They dictate our actions FAR more than we think. People live right out of their guts. We are primitive in that way.

When my depression became critical, it rose from beneath me like a dark wave. It tossed me about, laughing at my feeble words of protest. It kicked my ass, but good. I was unable to act in ways that made sense. My feelings of sorrow and panic washed away my control like a tsunami washes away the hammocks hanging near the beach.

I hid my sorrow as long as I could, and then I began to pick compulsively at the skin on my right hand until it bled. It hurt so bad, and I would swear I would never do it again. But then my left hand would start creeping over to my right hand. I couldn’t stop it.

So much for Mr. Cerebral.

And then, just to make sure that my worldview was completely shattered, that one stone was not left standing on another, and that salt was sown in my fields, I began to think crazy thoughts. Depression made me think crazy things.

THINK them.

I
Thought
Crazy
Things

I had thoughts that were not based in reality. Do you know how frightening and horrifying that is to a person like me?

At one point I decided that my wife of twenty years no longer loved me. I thought that, baby. THOUGHT IT.

And I thought that the people in my church didn’t like me anymore and were probably talking about how to fire me without totally devastating our family. I figured they would be nice in the way they did it, but yes, people were talking about me and trying to find a way to get rid of me.

Um, that’s some crazy shit. I am many things, but unloved and unappreciated are not among them.

So I was wrong about all of it. The simple division between thought and emotion, the control I thought I had by denying things I felt, and my arrogant pride in thinking that I understood myself well enough to have clear thoughts.

That’s what depression took from me.

What’s left? Let’s see…

A lot of humility and grace. I feel sorrow when I see men whose faces are hard and whose anger is beyond their control. I wish I could make them little boys again and hold them in my lap.

A new respect for people who deal well with their emotions, trusting them and experiencing them and nurturing them.

Gratitude for how I feel. Feeling good is very nice. I like it. I like to see my daughters and feel happy about it. I like to look forward to doing things instead of just doing them because duty calls.

Silliness. I’m such a silly person. You can’t believe how silly I am. I’m the silliest person in our whole family. Just a silly, giddy, goofy, funny boy.

Spiritual joy. I feel a deep, wondrous joy about my spiritual journey. Paying ritual homage to the power/intelligence behind the cosmos is a rich and meaningful thing to me. It is closely tied to humility. In the absence of any hope of figuring things out all by myself, I join myself to pilgrims across the ages, singing songs, reciting poetry, and telling sacred stories under the stars. Depression stole the joy from my faith, and I'm glad to have it back.

And last, love. Love was left behind after the depression went away. I’ve rediscovered love, and it’s like finding a baby bunny hiding under a zucchini leaf. You may pick her up and hold her, but be very careful. She’s trembling. But isn’t she the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen in all your life?

rlp

I think that this will be my last depression entry. I’ve said enough, and now is the time for living. If something happens and I get in bad shape again, I’ll be honest and tell you about it. Until then, if you don’t hear from me, assume that no news is good news.

 

Like all ministers, I have my strengths and my weaknesses. To have a knowledge of both is necessary for a pastor. For many people, what I do is important. Very important. Eternally important. That can be a bit of an ego trip. It may also lead to the crazy idea that my life and work is more serious and important than someone else’s. That’s not true, and it is a dangerous way to think.

My life, my theology, my practice of devotion, my best days and my worst days are all a part of me. How they affect others is always on my mind. That’s the necessary burden of this calling. And yet, I must show grace first to myself. Otherwise I will be unable to show grace to others.

In my case, I believe I know my two most serious pastoral shortcomings.

First, I have a tendency to disappear. You look around, and I’m gone. I came out of my shell on Sunday morning, smiling and shaking hands. I seemed genuine because I was genuine. I preached, I sang, I shook hands, I loved on the children. And when it was over, I disappeared. Who knows where the pastor went?

That in itself isn’t so bad, but I’m apt to disappear at almost any time. Having dealt with my depression and anxiety attacks over the last 18 months, I now know that when I start to lose control of my feelings, I become frantic in my attempts to disconnect from what causes me anxiety. Writing, reading, movies, and solitary manual labor are the things that take away my anxiety and depression. They are my drugs of choice. And they are things that have to be done alone.

I tend to do things at the church when nobody else is around. I’m like the little elven cobblers from the fairy story. You come to church and the chairs are in place. There is a sermon, printed materials, and sometimes a table is set for communion. Then I emerge from my office, smiling. I’m on.

Once a woman in the church said, “You remind me of a little hermit crab. If anyone makes a sudden move, you dart back into your shell.”

She’s right. Sometimes I think maybe being a pastor really IS that important, and I think that I have failed miserably, and I begin thinking crazy thoughts. The anxiety is a salty tang on the edge of the depression. It keeps me jumping. Sometimes the best I can do is flinch and force myself to stay engaged, but I’m often looking for a new shell, a place to be alone.

Occasionally I become so anxious and overwhelmed that I collapse in on myself, like a dying star. When that happens, I MUST be alone. It is no longer an option. I fear those times greatly. Medication has greatly lessened them for me. It’s rare now that I fall apart inside.

The end result of this is that I am a pastor who will probably never seek you out. If anyone asks for me, I pop out of my shell and give myself away. I listen hard. I am good listener. I will engage you and be all yours for a time. But you will have to ask for me. I will probably not ask for you.

My second great weakness is organization. I am the world’s worst administrator. I have terrible trouble with calendars anyway, and I loathe organizational tasks. They tend to depress me and fill me with anxiety. And you know what happens then. (See #1 above)

I remember when our elders started paying a very organized woman to help with the administration. One of them helped me work out a plan for keeping her supplied with tasks and duties. It all sounded good until I left his office. Then I had no idea what to do.

I’m not organized enough, apparently, to tell an administrative assistant what to do.

I began to be afraid of her. I would see her coming and think, “Oh shit, I should have some things written down for Helen to do.” Then my mind would go blank. Finally we stopped paying Helen to help me. Bless her heart; I imagine she was very frustrated working with me. Currently, things somehow run on their own at our church. Seriously, it’s a miracle, but we exist. We thrive even. A bunch of people show up at this church with a crazy dreamer for a pastor, and somehow we get the bills paid and do what we need to do. Year after year.

I administrate like an alcoholic. One day at a time. What’s happening right now? How am I needed right now? As a result I’m always facing deadlines and running around trying to fix stuff at the last minute.

I’m not proud of that. I try hard to do better.

But seriously, this is Gordon Atkinson. Most of his life he has dealt with his anxiety and depression secretly, all by himself. He has some odd coping skills. If you are looking for someone with the right words to be very present with you in the right moment, he is your man. This man loves the present moment and lives there in a way that is impossible for many people. But I doubt he’ll be able to plan for that moment. And when that moment comes, you’ll probably have to go looking for him.

It's dealing with what went before and organizing what will come after each moment that give him trouble. One out of three ain't so good, but there it is.

rlp

The Emotional Journey

There is the physical side of depression recovery, of course. It may involve medical intervention for physical symptoms and emotional states. In my case, as my depression deepened, I began to have migraine headaches for the first time in my life. Apparently, the neurotransmitters that I seem to be deficient in also have something to do with the dilatation of blood vessels. Migraine headaches are a classic symptom. I also developed a facial tick and serious sleeping problems, along with a few other assorted symptoms.

It is astonishing how quickly those physical symptoms went away as soon as I started taking medication. To be honest, I might be willing to take the medication just to avoid the headaches. And after a period of time, I found that I no longer felt depressed, but was engaged and interacting with people in ways that are important to me.

So this is good, right? Sure! Of course it is. It's freakin great!

But when you start to recover from depression, you may find that there are some emotional and relationship messes that cannot be fixed with pills.

Yesterday was Valentine's day. On this day I have traditionally given a flower to each of my three daughters along with a card that contains a VERY personal and carefully written affirmation of love from me. These little love notes are not filled with trite sayings. I write my heart out in them. It's always something special and just right for each of them. Watching them read my words has always been something I look forward to.

This year I didn't have to buy cards because I still had the three cards I bought for them last year and never gave them. One year ago I was in the deepest part of my depression. I had a number of emotional collapses that frightened Jeanene very much, because I had always been a steady and reliable presence in our family. Suddenly, with me falling apart, she was facing the reality that she was the last line of defense.

It's hard to man the fort alone. And she had to do it.

At that time I wandered into a store and picked out three Valentine's cards, one for each girl. I took them home, laid them on my nightstand, and never picked them up again. I have no memory of what I did or didn't do that Valentine's day. But one thing is for sure, the three sisters did not get their cards. I remember noticing the cards around the end of February. "Oh yeah." I said without much emotion. I didn't even feel regretful.

You really can't drop out of your children's lives without doing damage. That's the bad news. The worst damage was with my oldest daughter, with whom I had a number of hard conflicts at that time. We were drifting apart, and if it had continued it would have been much harder to set right. The good news is that no one forgives with more grace and love than a child. You have to sit down, tell the truth about yourself, and apologize. You can't make a lot of promises, but if your daily interaction with them shows them that you're back, all may be forgiven and you can move forward. I don't know if I have ever been closer to the three sisters than I am today. And that is VERY good news.

When it comes to Jeanene, things are little harder. I need to be very respectful of my wife's life and privacy, so I think I'll just say that it is my turn to be patient and wait. When the meds took effect, I was suddenly the old Gordon again. The change happened very quickly, and I was ready to pick up right where we left off. That's nice, but she doesn't have any magic medicine to change her life. And she has been carrying a huge burden because of me. It isn't easy to lay down a burden you've carried for another. All change takes time, even good change. I don't need to feel guilty and apologize a million times. I just need to be very tender and let her know how I feel.

If you find yourself in this situation and you're smart, you might just pretend that you and your spouse are dating again. In that case, "Go get her, boy. Win her affection. Sweep her off her feet!"

The last thing I want to talk about might be called the "It's my turn!" syndrome. When a family system absorbs the impact of the loss of one of its component parts, the rest of the family has to take up the slack. If father suddenly appears after a long absence, there is another trauma to the system as people try to get used to life with dad again. Sometimes someone else in the family has been waiting their turn to crash. In our case, our precious middle daughter suddenly developed a few issues of her own. I think it is no coincidence that this arose just a month or two after my medication began to help me.

So it's her turn, and it's my job and my honor to walk with her through her hard time. She will be fine, I'm sure. She has good ego strength and a wonderful connection to Jeanene and I. But yeah, there are some things to work on.

I guess I could sum up the whole thing by saying this:

"I'm back, and that's a good thing. But family repair isn't quick and easy. There's a lot to do, and it's certainly my turn to shoulder a good bit of the load."

rlp

The Physical Journey

I got up this morning and decided I would write about my depression again. Why? I have no idea. I rarely plan what happens here. I fly by the seat of my pants, go with my gut, whatever you want to call it. Sometimes someone will ask why I wrote something, or what I was hoping to accomplish by writing something, or why in the world did I find it necessary to use vulgar language so much in the old days. It's always a little embarrassing to have no answers for those kind of questions. I turn into a teenager if someone asks why I wrote something or why I wrote something in a particular way. I shrug and say, "I dunno. Because it came out that way, I guess."

I've written seven times about depression. You can find those essays here. Work from the bottom up if you want to read the story as it happened. The bottom essay was written during a down time and the others are about admitting my depression and beginning medication for it.

So now it's been eight months. Eight months since I crawled into the doctor's office, desperate for help. Eight months of remembering who I am. Eight months of reconnecting with my children and my wife. Eight months of going to church on Sunday mornings with no feelings of despair.

After some trial and error, I have I finally found a combination of medications that work for me. My original medication, Imipramine, is an older drug. It's also a "dirty" drug, meaning it's very effective but it will likely affect you in other ways as well. The newer drugs are more precise, as I understand it. I don't know why my doctor started me with Imipramine. I wasn't asking a lot of questions at that time. Something about the particulars of my situation, I suppose.

I have had some significant troubles with Imipramine. First, I kept having to increase my dosage, which would work for awhile, but then I would begin to slide back into depression. Second, I had some real struggles with other side effects. Imipramine took about 40% off the top of my libido. This was a grief all by itself. I felt strange, almost like a sexless creature. It's hard to exaggerate just how central sexuality is to your life and to your sense of yourself. It's probably a testimony to how bad I once felt that I was willing to accept this new reality if it meant I wouldn't have to go back down into the scary, black place again. Yeah, that was a tough thing for me to take, not to mention my wife. But my God, the three sisters were losing their daddy. I had to get that fixed and trust that I would get everything else straightened out along the way.

I have to laugh at myself, because I kept cutting the part about my sexuality, saying, "What the hell do you think you're doing? EVERYONE reads this!" Then I would feel like something was missing and put it back. I finally decided to leave it because that's a very important part of this journey. And people who embark on this journey ought to know what they may be facing.

In December I started seeing a psychiatrist instead of my M.D. He put me on Wellbutrin with only a small dose of Imipramine. Bingo. That seems to be the magic combination, for now. I feel great and the side effects are just about gone.

I look down at my tennis shoes, scuff them in the dirt a bit, then look back at you with kind of a shy smile.

"Yeah, I'm back now. ALL of me seems to be back, and that's probably all I should say about that."

---

 

So that's the physical part of the journey. I've learned a few things along the way.

• Be patient with this. Don't expect quick answers or miracles. This is more complex than taking an antibiotic.
• Talk about everything you are feeling and experiencing with your spouse or significant other. Talking not only helps you, it helps the one you love because he or she is taking this journey with you.
• If you have children, talk to them about this. All three sisters know that dad is on medication, which they think is great because Mr. Grumpy pants hasn't dropped by for a visit in eight months! Someday I'll have to write about Mr. Grumpy Pants.
• Understand that you manage depression. The medication that works today may not work in a few months. Someday you might not need any medication at all. You can't worry about tomorrow with this. You have to be happy for today and let that be enough.

As it turns out, the emotional journey of depression is just as difficult and perhaps harder. Relationships that were harmed or even formed while you were depressed do not heal quickly or by themselves.

But I'll write more about that part tomorrow...

rlp

I recently finished my fifth month taking medication for anxiety and depression. I wrote about this a few times during the first month, but after that I’ve avoided the topic for a couple of reasons. First, I didn’t want this to become Real Live Preacher’s depression journal. Second, what do I know about depression this early in the game? It’s not like I’m an expert or anything.

But I would like to revisit the topic at this time and share some beginner’s insights gained from five months of a new perspective.

You see, I never knew that I was depressed. With no perspective other than my own, how could I know what I should be feeling in a given situation? I just thought I was a moody, sometimes lazy, selfish guy who moped a lot. I always managed to find the energy I needed to smile at church and get my work done, but I had no energy to put on the same act for my family. I was pleasant enough at church or if you met me in the supermarket, but at home I was a morose, withdrawn, shadow person.

I figure I lost about a year of my children’s lives. I’m choosing not to dwell on that. What’s done is done. My children still love me, and I love them. My lack of presence has also been hard on my marriage, but Jeanene and I are committed to each other, and we’re working on that as well.

What I have gained over the last five months is a benchmark for my own feelings. I have an idea about how I should feel. I know what my low point is, and I know what my high point is. I have some understanding of how much anxiety and worry a person ought to experience when small problems present themselves. I know what a small amount of stress feels like. It tickles my mind and gets my attention, but it doesn’t cause me to have an anxiety attack and eat, say, an entire box of Poptarts at midnight.

I feel stress and sadness, of course, but they don’t turn into panicked, paranoid delusions. I don’t collapse into despair on Sunday evening because someone frowned during the sermon.

It’s funny, I used to wonder what the deal was with all these depressed people. (I was wondering this right in the middle of my own depression, but let’s talk about denial some other time.) I would wonder why sadness would stop them from carrying on with their daily work. So you’re sad. So what! Just get up off your lazy ass and get some work done. Feed your kids, help with the dishes, go to bed and get up in the morning and do it again. After all, I was managing to get my work done in spite of how I felt. I managed to do that for two and a half years. I managed to keep doing my work even during the last year, when I don’t think I rejoiced or celebrated anything at all. What a joyless, grey existence I had.

So for all of you who wonder why depression stops people from living, I have an answer for you. I have a way for you to think about this so that you can understand it. Here it is:

When it comes to depression, there are no heroes.

Imagine how you feel when something terribly sad happens to you. And think about the anxiety and tingly panic you feel when something you dread is about to happen, and you know you must face it head on. It feels like butterflies in your stomach. Put those two together and imagine that you feel that every day. You have no idea why, but every day you experience both of those feelings to varying degrees.

How long could you keep your happy act going? A week? Two weeks? What if you were a person of deep, moral strength and determination? What if, by some heroic effort, you managed to ignore your feelings and carry on with your life for an entire year before you snapped?

And you will snap. Trust me on this. The day will come when your act falls apart like a house of cards. Your true feelings will come out, and they will come out in crazy ways. The longer you hold them inside, the crazier they are when they finally get out.

Okay, this is the important part. This is why there are no heroes with depression. On the day you snap, you are just a guy who snapped. You get no credit for the weeks or months or years that you were being heroic. No one knew that you were holding all that inside. Sorry buddy, there are no bonus points for being a hero. When you snap and start yelling at your kids for no good reason, you are just a guy who yells at his kids for no good reason.

Of course, you don’t want to be a guy who yells at his kids, so you start avoiding them and everyone else if you can get away with it. You begin to isolate yourself. By the time you get home from a long day of pretending that you care about things, you don’t want to talk to anyone.

Your whole life becomes centered around trying not to feel bad. You will do whatever it takes to get a little relief from despair, anxiety, self-loathing, and all the other horrible things you feel. Hell yes, you’ll do it. You’ll do anything to feel a little better or at least to feel nothing at all.

For me, the only way to stop feeling bad was to lose myself in a movie, or a book, or the computer. So I spent less and less time with my wife and children. I was home, but I really wasn’t home. I knew that they needed me, but I was willing to sacrifice my long-term happiness for short-term relief.

It’s rather like going into debt. Once you are on the way down, why not use the credit card a few more times to give yourself some momentary pleasure. I mean, if you owe $15,000, what’s another hundred bucks?

I managed to avoid falling apart for several years. And then came Real Live Preacher. Writing was the best drug I had ever found. Better than food or movies. Better than a night alone where no one could find me. With writing I could do more than escape. I could feel the joy that I was missing in real life. Perhaps Real Live Preacher was the only place where I felt safe enough to be the real live me.

At the same time, Real Live Preacher was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The rigorous and emotional work of writing finally brought me to the moment of crisis, the moment when I finally broke. Insomnia, migraine headaches, and a facial tick that still plagues me finally convinced me to go to the doctor.

Real Live Preacher was born of my depression, you might say. And sometimes I wonder what the future will bring. I can already tell a difference. I’m not driven by desperation anymore. Writing is becoming a craft that I embrace, instead of an escape that I feed with energy that should be going to my family and friends.

So when someone you know finally caves in and falls apart, remember that you have no idea how long this person carried his secret burden. And I don’t care who you are. You cannot carry unending sorrow and burning anxiety forever.

No one is that strong. And no one can be that heroic.

gordon

People told me that it would take some time to get my medication figured out. They said I shouldn’t get discouraged if the first medication isn’t right for me, or if it takes some “trial and error” to get the dosage right.

So I felt lucky when the first medication turned out to be the right one. 25mg, 50mg, then 75mg, the magic number. I take three little brown pills each night, and my depression, anxiety, and anger are nowhere to be found.

I’ve decided that I like this way of living. I’ve come to accept this new life as normal for me. Depression? That’s something that used to plague me long ago in some other life. You know, back in the days when I was too stubborn to go to the doctor. I have to laugh when I think of how stupid I used to be.

Yeah, right.

I’m like a guy who wanders into church for the first time and thinks he “gets it.” Six months later he wants to teach a bible study and meet with the pastor to explore the possibility of ordination.

God, I should have seen this coming. Fucking Pride. They do say it comes just before the fall.

A couple of weeks ago I was cleaning up around the television. I grabbed a half-empty can of Diet Coke and headed for the kitchen. Jeanene said, “That’s my Diet Coke.” I nodded, but continued toward the kitchen, thinking I would put it on the counter for her. She didn’t see me nod and repeated herself a little louder. “That’s MY Diet Coke.”

I nodded again, but for some reason it didn’t register that she wanted me to leave the Diet Coke where it was. I was thinking of other things and by this time was just entering the kitchen. Jeanene, thinking I hadn't heard her, spoke up again, this time loudly.

“THAT’S MY DIET COKE!”

A surge of rage coursed through me like an IV push of pure adrenalin. There was no question of holding it back. The best I could do was to keep from yelling at her. I whirled around and hissed through my clenched teeth.

“I HEARD you. I was just going to put it on the COUNTer!”

Jeanene looked shocked and a little hurt. There was no reasonable explanation for this anger, nor was there any warning of its arrival. I was embarrassed and immediately regretful, but the residual effects of the anger were still with me, so I turned around and put my hands wide apart on the kitchen counter. Then I leaned forward, dropping my head and letting my weight rest on my hands. I didn't want anyone to see my face. This anger felt familiar, as did the feelings of sadness that now rushed into the void it left behind. Later I apologized to Jeanene.

Then Friday night came. The girls had a couple of friends over for the evening. To me it seemed like there was a chattering mob of people in my house. There were only five girls, but it felt like twenty-five. I began to feel anxious, so I retreated to my bedroom with some Poptarts and my computer.

Jeanene found me there and looked at me with her head tilted slightly. It was the “Why are you way back here and so disconnected from us?” look.

That’s when it hit me. The depression was back. My heart started beating faster. I paced back and forth in the bedroom, fretting and picking at the skin around my fingernails. Crazy thoughts fluttered around in my head.

“What if the medication is losing its power? What if it becomes less and less effective until I feel like this all the time again?”

“What if modern science is wrong and there really are demons in the world? What if some graduate school demon has selected me as the subject of his dissertation?”

Saturday was horrible, just like the old days. I didn’t want to do anything productive, and doing nothing made me feel even worse. I held on and waited for night to come, though I dreaded going to bed. I wondered if Sunday morning was going to be bad.

No. Sunday was a good day. I was in a great mood, and I had a wonderful time with the three sisters that afternoon. Monday morning I woke up and felt as though I was “back to normal,” whatever that is.

I don’t know what happened that week. It was like some dark presence inside of me surfaced briefly to remind me that my journey to emotional health is just beginning.

Trust me. I’m properly humbled. I keep parroting phrases I either heard when I was a chaplain in a rehab unit or on television from George Bush senior.

“Easy does it.”

“Stay the course.”

“One day at a time.”

“Trust the process. Quitting now wouldn’t be prudent.”

My medication does have a few annoying side effects. The worst of these is a ringing in my ears that sounds sort of like crickets. It gets louder if I clench my teeth. And I still occasionally wonder if I really have a chemical imbalance, like my doctor says I do. At this point, it’s almost a moot question. I feel good, and I don’t mind taking drugs if that’s what I have to do to feel this way.

Ouch. That sounds familiar. It sounds like things I heard addicts say in rehab. You know what? I don’t care. That’s the way it is. I have to take drugs, and I’m going to keep taking them, though I wish I could find some way to make the damn crickets go away.

In spite of this recent bump in the road, I have reasons to celebrate. I feel joy again. Joy in living and not just in writing about living. And I can write as much as I want now. Writing is a legitimate way for me to spend my time and not just an irresponsible way for me to escape my sadness and anxiety.

Nothing has been broken that cannot be fixed. Jeanene loves me, and the three sisters are all smiles. They tell me they had forgotten how silly and funny I can be. I’m joking around again and playing pranks. Reiley called me on my mobile phone the other night, and I answered with a Cockney accent:

“Oy, Bob! This ere bird thinks Oi’m er father!”

Yeah, daddy’s back. And he’s so glad to be here.

And you know what? Time is on my side. I have a lot of living left to do, assuming I manage to stay alive. The presence of God seems very real to me right now, and there is joy in my humble prayers.

And I think God is hearing my prayers, even over the sound of the crickets.

rlp

Note: This is not going to be nearly as exciting as the title sounds.

Before I get to the preaching on drugs part, let me give you a little update. I'm just about through my first month of medication for my depression. The third dosage level, 75 milligrams of Imipramine, seems to be right for me, though it's really too soon to tell. The last two weeks have been wonderful. Jeanene and the three sisters would tell you that I'm like a new person.

I feel like I've been reunited with a long-lost friend. I remember that I used to feel this way. I used to be happy and very silly with the girls. I used to play a lot of crazy “daddy games.” It feels good to find myself again.

There are a couple of side effects that I'm having to deal with, but none more important than the benefits, and all of them can be dealt with. The thought of slipping back to the way I was before is terrifying to me. I would do just about anything to keep feeling this way. I'm not sure that's a good thing, but that's how I feel about it.

But you want to hear about preaching on drugs, am I right?

First, I need to tell you what preaching has been like for me over the last ten years. Every Sunday morning I would awaken before dawn and experience some combination of dread, sorrow, anxiety, and paranoia. My moods would range from simple sadness and lethargy to a dark, “Camus-like” angst, which drove away any sense of the presence of God. I knew I was on my way to a sacred place of worship, and I knew that I would be called upon to stand and preach. I felt like the world's biggest hypocrite.

I am unable to remember a Sunday when I felt happy and glad to be going to church. This was my big secret. The thing I didn't want anyone to know. I didn't want to be there. Not really. Not in my heart. It certainly came out in my writing. Once I wrote something that began with this line: “Sundays can be a bitch.”

Yeah.

But even in the darkest times, there was always a small shaft of light making its way into the depths of my soul. The one thing I never lost was the desire to offer something to God, or, on bad days, to the possibility of God. And since I could not offer joyous service, a child-like faith, or even much hope, I offered what I had. My body.

“I will get out of bed, and I will go to church. I will arrange the chairs and print the orders of worship. I will pray. I will make ready. And when the time comes, I will preach.”

Ah, preaching. I always had that. If everything else felt crazy, at least I could control that one 20 to 25 minute time slot. Hyper-focus has always been my drug of choice, and these are the things that bring it: movies, reading, writing, and preaching.

My preaching style is something like that of a stand-up comedian. I don't mean that I try to be funny, but I seek that kind of intimate connection with the congregation. No pulpit, nothing between you and me. No looking at notes. Only a small index card with a bare outline, and that's only to be glanced at once or twice if needed.

I have always had the strange ability to create a fairly complex sermon outline, get completely lost in the moment of delivery, and not really need my notes. Not only can I follow my outline, I can usually remember exact phrases that I want use here and there. This is odd since I can hardly remember anything else. My absent-mindedness is almost legendary among my friends. I've lived in San Antonio for 16 years and I still get lost.

So over the last ten years, I've developed something of a pattern for myself. Wake up on Sunday morning and feel lousy. Go to church anyway and get focused in order to drive away the feelings. At precisely 11:00am, channel that focus into my sermon. Go home and collapse on the couch or disappear into the computer.

But last Sunday I had taken this new medication the night before. I woke up feeling normal. I got all the way to church before I realized that I didn't feel bad. I was actually looking forward to Sunday. And why not look forward to it? I like my church. My dearest friends are here, and they are generous and kind and put up with my weird eccentricities. They truly love me and care for my family. Worship is relaxed and meaningful, and I get to preach, a thing I dearly love. Why shouldn't I be happy?

What I'm about to tell you next is something that only someone as goofy as me could come up with. I don't know how to explain it except to say that I didn't feel right being so happy. I mean, I just wasn't used to it. And since I didn't need such intense focus to drive away the feelings of despair, I wasn't that focused. And not being focused was making me VERY nervous.

I responded by eating five Poptarts before anyone got to the church. I guess this means I'm officially off the South Beach Diet, huh?

As the sermon approached, rather than feeling relieved and ready, I felt nervous and a little out of sorts. As it turns out, it's hard to get used to feeling normal again.

And then Steve S. stood to pray before the sermon. He prayed for me, and I started crying. Fortunately I was able to shut that down quickly, but when I stood to speak, I didn't feel like I was going to be very organized or coherent.

At one point I completely forgot what I was supposed to say next. I can't tell you what an alien feeling that was for me. When I preach, I am NEVER at a loss for words. Suddenly, I had no words.

“Thank goodness I have my outline,” I thought. I looked down at it. I could read words on it, but they meant nothing to me. Normally a quick glance is all I need, but I was getting nothing. I stared at the outline for a “world without end” moment, then I gave up and started free-wheeling. I said some things - I remember that much - and we got through the service. I forgot the words to the final blessing, but I do that about once every three months anyway.

So my first experience with preaching on drugs tells me that I've got to relearn some things. Having real drugs on board, I don't need to use preaching as a drug anymore, if that makes any sense at all.

The good news is that I'm among friends. I'm not anxious or worried. I'm sure whatever gift I have that allows me to stand and speak without fear will return in a week or two.

In the meantime, I seem to have found something other than my weary body to offer unto the Lord. I think it's called joy, and it's a heckuva thing to get used to.

rlp

I still can't remember the name of my medication. What's up with that? Okay, I went and got the bottle. I'm holding it right now.

Imipramine.

I was right; it does begin with an I.

I'm pretty sure the emphasis is on the second syllable, (Em-IP-rah-mean) but I like emphasizing the third syllable so that it sort of sounds like “Gimme Praline.”

But I digress.

Anyway, the plan is: 25 mg. for a week, 50 mg. for a week, then 75 mg. for two weeks. The doctor warned me that I might not notice anything until week three.

I finished the first week. I felt no effects other than the dry mouth that I've already mentioned. I began the 50 milligram dose on a Tuesday. That night I slept until morning for the first time since January. I don't think I've mentioned that I've been waking up every morning between 4am and 5am, my stomach churning with anxiety and panic.

Wednesday I felt strange all day. Periodically I would feel a heaviness in my neck and shoulders and get a shot of adrenaline in my gut. I would find myself flinching, waiting for the wave of sadness to hit, but it never did. I had mild anxiety, but I felt... I don't know... sort of even, I guess.

Thursday the anxiety was gone, and I think I lived through my first normal day in recent memory. I felt good all day. I did my work and was happy to do it. I went home and was happy to see the family.

Friday I was so happy that I worried I might be in a manic state. It even seemed like the colors at the church were brighter. I actually stopped on the way into the building to look in amazement at how green and pretty the plants were. I couldn't believe how good it felt not to be anxious and sad.

I knew that Friday night would be the big test. Friday night and Sunday morning are the two times of the week when I really get down. Friday night is supposed to be family night at our house. Well, it used to be. Lately it's been, “Mope around, ignore people, make no plans, let the evening slip away, and get even more depressed” night.

When I walked up to our front door on Friday evening, I was so happy to see everyone. I even went outside and played catch with Reiley, something that she dearly loves and something we haven't done in a long time. And here's the thing: I WANTED TO DO IT. I do not remember the last time I actually wanted to do anything like that. Sometimes I play with the kids because I know I'm supposed to, but this time I wanted to.

Wanting to be with people is so wonderful! I had forgotten what that feels like.

Then came Saturday. I woke up feeling a little anxious. By Sunday my anxiety was back. Monday and Tuesday were pretty bad days. For about 24 hours, unless I was asleep, I was feeling butterflies in my stomach. It was the kind of intense anxiety you feel if you are about to get into a fight, or be audited by the IRS, or face some other terrible and dreaded thing. But there was no reason to be anxious.

At one point I paced around the house saying, “There is nothing to be anxious about.” over and over. But that never works.

I felt particularly strange since this kind of free-floating anxiety normally leads me into a very depressed and saddened state of mind. First, I withdraw from all relationships. For some reason it makes me feel worse to talk to people. Then I start looking for my escapes. The computer, a movie, sleep, anything to get my mind off how I am feeling.

But I only felt the anxiety. The wave of depression never hit. I was able to tell myself that my body was still getting used to the medicine. I was able to tell myself not to trust what I was feeling. Saying that out loud helped.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourteenth day.

The following Tuesday night I went to 75 milligrams.

rlp

I do not know the name of the medication I am on. My friend Amy (Michael Main's wife) asked me what I was taking and was understandably puzzled when I told her I didn't know. “They're little bitty brown pills,” I said.

The next day I got the name off the medicine bottle and read about it on the internet. I saw Amy a day or two later and she asked me again. To my surprise, I had already forgotten the name of the drug. Nor could I remember anything I had read about it.

Obviously I do not want to know this medication. I'm not ready to get chummy with her. I'm not ready for a commitment. We're not even on a first name basis.

I do know that the normal dosage for a man is 150 milligrams. The instructions say to take 25 milligrams, once a day for 7 days. Then 50 milligrams a day for 7 days, then 75 milligrams a day for two weeks. The doctor said I really wouldn't notice anything until I got to 75 milligrams. Well, all except for the dry mouth.

The dry mouth is the only side effect this medication is supposed to have. It is not supposed to have “certain sexual side effects,” if you know what I mean. But yes, your mouth will be dry.

Here is what it's like to preach while on this medication: Stuff a small marshmallow in each nostril and then sleep for 8 hours breathing through your mouth. Wake up and eat a cup of sawdust. Then stand in front of a crowd of people and talk for 25 minutes.

Yeah. My tongue felt like a tube sock filled with dryer lint.

Last Sunday I emptied an entire water bottle getting through the service. Let me ask you something. If I preached wearing one of those baseball caps that have coke cans on the side and a tube going to your mouth, do you think that would destroy the dignity of the pastoral office?

Not that we preachers have any dignity left, what with the televangelists and Joel Olsteen.

Anywho, that was pretty much it for the first week. Dry mouth, sucking water, wondering what I'm going to feel like when these little brown pills start working.

rlp

My doctor drew a little diagram of a brain and of a nerve pathway with a gap in it. He pushed the paper in front of me so that I could see it.

“You see, this gap prevents unnecessary communication between different parts of your brain. You don’t want your thinking to become undifferentiated. When you have certain kinds of experiences, neurotransmitters are secreted into this gap, making the connection and allowing communication from one part of your brain to the other. See?”

One part of me was listening to him, but my eyes kept slipping over to the right side of the paper where he had written a list of symptoms. I couldn’t stop looking at the list because I have every single one of them.

He continued. “You’re a poster child for this disorder. I’ll probably be telling people about you when I describe it in the future. The depression, the loss of energy and a lack of desire to do anything, the anxiety attacks, the migraines, the facial tic, the insomnia, the trouble with digestion, the appetite issues, the dark moods and temper flare-ups. It’s textbook.”

“That coupled with your family history, your mom and your grandfather. It sounds like he struggled with this his entire life. I won’t know for sure until we get your tests back, but I’m convinced you have a chemical deficiency, or imbalance if you want to think of it that way, that runs in your family.”

“It’s true,” I said. “I never want to do anything. I have to make myself do everything, even fun things with the girls. Sometimes I can make myself get started and hope the desire will catch up to me. The only thing I want to do is escape from everyone. Writing and movies do that for me. I got along okay until the last year or so. That's when the facial tic and the bad headaches started."

“Do you know I never want to go to church on Sunday morning? I have to make myself go. It’s like whipping a dog and driving him out of the house. Every Sunday for years. I thought there was something missing in my spirit, you know, like I'm not praying enough or something.  I always manage to find a way to get up for the people at church, but I can’t seem to get myself together for my own family. They see a different Gordon, one that no one else sees.”

Suddenly I began to weep, though I didn’t feel like I should be crying. Part of me was standing outside myself, watching and analyzing. “What the hell are you crying for, you fraud?”

The doctor waited patiently, then added a compassionate, “I know.”

I pulled myself together and said, “So, what would it be like if I took whatever it is you’re thinking of giving me?”

“Well, it’s a matter of trying it and seeing what happens, but I think it would be like coming back to life again. I think you probably don’t even realize how diminished life has become for you. You’ve probably struggled with this for some years now. When people are younger they can usually compensate a little better.”

“Yeah…I guess. Look, I’m not sure how to say this, but what’s going to happen to the way I think about the world around me? Is this going to change that? I think I tend to experience things in a kind of detached way, almost like I’m watching myself. And then later I write about what’s happened to me, and that’s when all the emotion comes. Do you think this is going to change the way I think and experience things in some fundamental way?”

“No, I don’t. I think you’ll come to remember that you used to experience things quite passionately and in the present moment. You’ve just forgotten. You’re not thinking clearly right now. You know, our thoughts and our emotions are tied together very closely. I think taking this medication will bring you back to life.”

I wanted to believe that this was true, but some part of me couldn't accept it.

“See, the thing is, I can’t help but think this is just a problem that I should be able to cope with. You know, like everyone else does. Taking some drug seems like the lazy way out.”

“Is that what you tell people in your church who are on medication?”

“No.”

"Of course not, because you know that sometimes people have to take medicine. It's not a matter of the will or of strength. Your brain isn't secreting enough neurotransmitters. We're fortunate to live in a time when medication can help. Your grandfather didn't have this option."

He paused, then went on. “If you want to keep trying to feel better on your own, you can. I can tell you what will happen. It’s only going to get worse for you. Your children and your wife will be forced to live with a shadow of who you really are. Eventually it will become too much for you, and you’ll probably end up in a hospital like your mom. Sure you're strong and determined, probably as strong as anyone I've met, but eventually this thing will eat your lunch. And what will be the use of that? So what if you manage to hold out for another twenty years or so. You’ll only be robbing your family of what they need, which is you.”

I wasn’t convinced, but I was becoming open to the idea. I still felt like I was just some lazy guy looking for an easy way out. But I went to this doctor promising myself and my wife that I would at least try his advice.

Then he gave me a way out. “If you want to keep trying therapy, you can go to that guy in Austin that you like. You can try it for a few more months, but I don’t think it’s going to help. You can’t talk your body into increasing its production of neurotransmitters.”

For a moment I considered putting this off for awhile. I thought about it, but in my mind I saw a picture of myself sitting, slumped on the couch: Lillian skips in and asks if I want to play chess. I feel a wave of irritation that makes no sense at all. “No, I don’t want to do anything,” I say with no feeling or compassion.

“No. I’m going to continue therapy for other reasons, but I want to give this a try. When can I start?”

Down inside I still wonder if I have a problem that requires medication, but I am a trusting person. I am trusting my doctor. My family is worth at least that.

rlp

I am now on day 13 of taking the medication prescribed by my Doctor. Its effects are not immediate, but have begun. I’ve always felt comfortable writing about my life here. I know there are a lot of people reading this blog, but for my own sanity, I think of you as roughly 50 people. I think of “you” as “someone” I can talk to safely.

I think I’d like to keep an online journal here of my journey with this medication. I need to talk to someone about this.

I'm not going to clean this up much, so however it sounds it how it sounds.

Tonight I wish it was like the old days with Real Live Preacher, back when I was anonymous and no one in my church knew about this blog. For some reason this is where I want to come when I'm sad. I want to come here and write. I think of Real Live Preacher as a place. I know that's a little strange. The blog software comes on the screen and I feel like I've left my life behind. I feel like I'm the one that matters here. My feelings matter. What I need matters.

Only it's not the old days. And I have to be careful in what I write. Not because I might hurt someone at the church, but because I have to be careful that I don't use this blog as a backwards and roundabout way of sending messages to my church family. That's a real temptation. It's the sort of thing you could do without thinking much about it. It wouldn't be healthy either.

So I can't share details about what's going on. But it's 4:30 am and my stomach is in knots of grief.

Someone in our community has been hurt. Not physically, but emotionally wounded. However unintentional, I had a part in that wounding. It's the kind of wound that is old and even a small thing can stir up that old pain. I'm unsure of how much this person will still want to be a part of our community, and that is a sorrow so intense that I'm not sleeping well tonight. I am devastated by this surprising turn of events.

I hate what is happening at our church right now. I hate this thing I can't really talk about. I hate it and I had something to do with creating it. I never saw it coming.

So okay. That's the deal.

One week ago I went to an Annie Lennox concert with some friends from church. It had been a long time since I had allowed myself to sit still and enjoy music. I closed my eyes and remembered that we need to play in this life. We need to set aside all of our cares and enjoy the present moment. And I did enjoy being present in that moment and leaving all other moments behind.

Some of her poetic lyrics stuck in my mind that night. Especially the song, “Here comes the rain again,” with its very poignant question, “Is it raining with you?”

Yes, it's raining with me.

And this is where I am turning. To Real Live Preacher. I hope he'll be here for me tonight.

I was already on the edge and now I've slipped over into deep sadness and grief. Grief sucks as a general rule, but it's worse when you are facing a lot. And I'm facing a lot this weekend. Saturday morning I'm driving eight hours round trip to visit a cousin of mine in prison. That's always a hard day, but that night we also have a baptism service. Jeanene and I are friends with a couple who have become Christians and joined our community of faith. They will be baptized in their own pool Saturday night along with some children in the church who are old enough to make that decision.

I have to be ready to celebrate that event with our friends. I am their minister. They need the best I have on Saturday night.

The sermon is coming Sunday morning along with the whole Sunday morning thing. I am the minister. I must be ready. I preach with a simple outline and no pulpit. I don't like things in between me and my friends. A good bit of that preaching event depends on me being emotionally present in that moment. I'll be ready, but becoming ready to preach when I am in such a low place is something that I can't really describe. One thing is for sure. There will be depression and depletion on the other side of that event.

I have learned to fear depression. I don't like knowing it's coming.

However skewed and illusionary this is, I feel like this is the only place where I matter right now. I have three children. They have to be cared for, fed, driven to school, all that. How I feel in the moment isn't an issue when it comes to children. At church everyone else comes first. Please don't write me to tell me that's wrong, or it shouldn't be that way, or I'm out of my mind. I'm not asking you to educate me. This is my reality. This is how I see it.

I'm the shepherd. That's the deal. I always have to think of how things are affecting people in the church. All of them. They come first.

When I pray and when I write for Real Live Preacher, I'm the one that gets taken care of.

Only I haven't been praying much lately, and I guess I'd like to talk about that. I am in and out with praying. I'm not prescribing that as a method or saying it's good or bad. It's just the truth. I tend to go through times when I don't pray for whatever reasons. Bad reasons I'm sure.

Whatever you think about God and religion and the bible and praying, I'm here to tell you that prayer is powerful. When I am in the practice of sitting and listening and humbly sharing my heart with the Creator, that is a time when I matter and I am released from whatever legitimate calling or silly enmeshment is preventing me from taking care of myself. I find wisdom and direction in that discipline, and it is only because of my own weakness and silliness that I abandon prayer.

I'm a sinner. That's what we mean when we say that. What I know is right and good I abandon for things that are not right and not good. There are lessons I still have not learned.

So tonight, there is only Real Live Preacher for me. I remember now that's why I started writing here in the first place. I remember those old days when no one knew me and tossing my passion into the void of the Internet felt like casting my bread on the waters.

Do you think God might consider Real Live Preacher one big prayer from me? Even the cussing and the weakness and when I am skewed and crazy? Maybe God will consider what I'm writing tonight as a prayer. I like thinking that could be true.

It's 5:20 am and I feel better. Thanks for listening, whoever you are.

I feel I should tell you that I probably will not write for a while. I don't know, maybe some things like this, but no serious writing. I know that some of you come by here a lot to see if I've posted anything. And that makes me feel somewhat responsible to let you know if I'm not going to be writing. (Jesus, is there ANYTHING I won't take responsibility for?)

Yeah, no serious essays for awhile. It feels good to let go of that burden. Normally I like the motivation that comes with the drive to post things here. I don't question it because I need it. It makes me work at writing and whatever gets you working is good. I don't want to lose that motivation, but I'm going to set it aside for a time.

I may not respond to emails or comments much either. Or I might. What do I know? It's freakin 5:30 am in the morning! Who knows what I'll do tomorrow, really. But I need to experience this sadness and engage the real people in my life. I need to deal with this relationship grief straight up and in person. I need to do that. I need to walk the path of this weekend and see where it leads me.

It's raining with me, but there is always an end to the storm. I keep telling myself that.

gordon

Sunday Night, 12-8-02

 

Sundays can be a bitch.

 

I get up way before daylight and head for church. I open up the joint. I putter around and straighten hymnals. I make ready. I preach the sermon 3 or 4 times. I talk to myself. I talk to God out loud. I light candles and pray. Sometimes I throw a nerf football around the sanctuary while I get my mind straight. You should try that sometime if you can find a church that will let you get away with it.

 

None of this is what makes Sunday hard.

 

What's hard about Sunday is that I don't matter on this day. Sunday is for the folks who come to church. It's their day and not mine. I must be “up” when everyone arrives. I must be emotionally ready.

 

Anyone who has children understands what I'm talking about. If you are a daddy, you always make the left turn and take your paycheck and yourself home to your kids. One day you may feel like turning right and leaving town, but you don't. You love your children because you are committed to them. How you feel on one given day is not really the issue.

 

I believe love is primarily a choice and only sometimes a feeling. If you want to feel love, choose to love and be patient.

 

Okay, so when I made a commitment to shepherd these people, I made a conscious decision to love them. That commitment is more important than how I feel come Sunday morning. I will be there early. I will set things up. I will do the early morning candle/praying/nerf thing. I will be ready.

 

I do this every single Sunday. I do this when I am sad. I do this when I am depressed. I do this when I am hurting inside.

 

I do this many Sundays when I don't believe in God.

 

On those days I stare at the door to the church in the dark. The silence of the building is reminiscent of the silence of God. I say, “fuck it” and go on in. I do the candle/praying/nerf thing. I make ready. I will be glad to see them. I will love the children. I will stop for a moment and talk to the woman who needs too much. I will preach, one more time.

 

I'm tempted to talk about what shatters my faith, but I think I'll leave that alone for now.

 

Fidelity to commitment in the face of doubts and fears is a very spiritual thing. I don't suggest it for the weak of heart or if you are in a hurry. An old, African American preacher once told Martin Luther King Jr., “Until you've stood at the door for years and knocked until your hands bled, hearing nothing but silence, you don't know what prayer is.” (Not an exact quote)

 

I'd like to have met that preacher.

 

I wonder how much longer I'll do this? I have no idea. I live week to week.

 

On Sunday after church I feel numb all over. I mean that literally. I AM NUMB. I got nothin left for nobody.

 

The preacher lives for Sunday night. Sunday night is when I matter. On Sunday night I Sing the Song of Myself. I pop in the latest thing from Netflix, drink too much diet coke, and eat more than I should. I settle into the couch and take care of myself.

 

I do this every Sunday night except I didn't tonight. Tonight I wrote this. And the preacher feels better. And the preacher is going to bed.