agoraphobia

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Grieve to Be Present With Yourself

 

Maria Yakunchikova "Fear" 1893-95

Image via Wikipedia

 

We grieve when we get sick.  And we grieve again when after getting well, we get sick again.  Then the grieving can be even more terrible because you know what’s coming.  In Pearla’s case, she didn’t know she was grieving but she knew she was sad and terrified at the same time.

I asked her if she thought that staying in bed, loosing interest, isolating, crying jags out of the blue might be related her grief about getting sick again.  She said no at first and then said, “I’m disappointed.  I thought this was over for me.”  All over, she couldn’t trust herself.

Pearla was afraid. And that fear was always there.  Now she couldn’t put it out of her mind.  “What if I have another panic attack?  I can’t take it!”  “What if,” was always on her mind.

Readers, a panic attack is more terrifying than just about any immediate experience.  If you’ve never had one, it is almost impossible to imagine the depth of terror it causes.  It is so horrible, that people even change professions because of it.  I remember a surgeon who actually went back to residency and studied a new specialty because he linked his panic to his profession.  That’s another 4 years of grueling work, readers.  That’s the kind of fear panic produces.

Pearla was not only in the throes of this fear, she was also in the throes of grief.  This is a deep sadness any of us who have lost a beloved hope can relate to.  Pearla didn’t know that was why she didn’t want to get out of bed.  All she knew is over the last 2 weeks she was loosing herself and in exchange, getting something she desperately did not want.

Somehow though, after hearing about her sadness from her own mouth, Pearla agreed.  She saw the grief and after seeing grief, she could be more present with it.  It was almost like her face materially came out from hiding.  Grief lost some hold on her.  She was a little less sad and a little less afraid.

Self-Care Tip #111 – Let yourself grieve.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  How do you grieve?  Was it worth it to you?  Please tell me your story.

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Self-Care is not unChristian

 

Don’t be afraid of self-care.

Self-care is Christian and scientific.  I have awareness of the culture that frowns on taking bad behavior out of the church and into the laboratory.

A few days ago we talked about self-care not being selfish.  That circuitously brought up the question about how “the church” feels about this blog.

Confusing “the church” with Christianity can be problematic.  I have confused them in the past.

When my brother started talking evolution, I felt cold and clammy suddenly.  After my mini-panic attack, he told me about reading the entire works of Darwin and I had another mini-panic attack.  “There’s no way evolution didn’t happen.  There’s just too much evidence supporting it.”  I was confused.

It took me a long time to realize that I didn’t have to be worried about differences between me, science and God.  Funny that my comfort level grew with this as I realized how little I knew.  In fact, my joy expanded, when I realized I would spend all eternity growing my knowledge.  That is a lot of everything that just won’t fit into any box I can think of.

iwantthatpainting.com/Why-does-it-always-rain-on-me.html

Now when something crashes through a pet-paradigm, I remember that it’s ok.  (Down fear!  Get down anxiety!  Heal dogs!)  I may see a different reality.  Parts of me may become changed by that knowledge, trauma, death of a dear one.  Becoming changed and different is ok.  Because God is the same.  God already knows whatever about evolution, or that the world is round.  He knows that we try to turn medical symptoms into something spiritual, like depressed mood.  He knows it and He’s still here.  He is the prototype of presence.  Now that people can look into the brain and say where feelings and behaviors come from, we can get past that and on to the next revelation.  So what if it is medicalized.  Science and spirituality are not exclusive of each other.

So is self-care Christian or scientific?  Things aren’t that binary.  Self-care is both.

Self-Care Tip #84 – Don’t be afraid of self-care.  Be a friend to yourself.

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Let it Make You Strong

She is young, golden, blushes easily, bright solar eyes, with graceful speech, not rushed or loud.  Like so many others, she doesn’t believe her beauty.   She came to me to get help.  Crippled by anxiety that hits out of the blue, like a hooded man grabbing her in an alley.  She feels during those times like she is dying or going crazy.  She started avoiding public places and became fearful looking over her shoulder for the next attack.  She was humiliated on all accounts by her uncontrolled emotions and thought people could see how crazy she was just by looking at her.  Branded and tortured.

When Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, he made plain the cultural pressure to define what is apparent, seen, and interpreted.  But more importantly he made plain the ability of an individual to define themselves on their own terms regardless.  Hester Prynne wore her letter A at first by mandate and then by choice, letting it represent who she was, where she came from, and where she was going.  She wore her letter and when people tried to change its meaning to something culturally less scarlet, “A” for “Able” she made it clear that she is the one who will decide the meaning of her life’s events.  Her and God and no one else.

When anxiety hits, we are scrambling to understand why.  We think, “What could we have done that is so terrible to have brought this kind of torture on?”  As Hester Prynne began her scarlet letter days bewildered by the force of emotion behind her angry neighbors, so victims of anxiety are bewildered by the level of shame and wild fear they presume must be linked somehow to this judgment upon them.  It becomes their life’s work to determine the meaning of a life with this.

Nathaniel Hawthorne writes,

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not to tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong…

Suffering is a schoolhouse for the courageous.

After some months of medication therapy this twenty-something woman said

I’m not so uptight about things.  …I didn’t know my anxiety was that bad until I got out of it.”  What amazed her even more was how better the rest of her body felt.  “Even physically I feel much better.”  No more chest tightness, body aches, and shakes.

She has the rest of her life to figure out how to say what this disease means and how it plays into the way she defines herself.  She will decide I hope.  Not her family, future husband, church, or Brook Shields.  I hope she will take what it teaches her and let it make her strong.

Self Care Tip #57 – Let it make you strong.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  What do you think?  Please tell me your story.