When I first started seeing my therapist, I assumed I'd go a handful of times, grab some skills, and be on my merry, well adjusted way. That wasn't really what God had in mind. It turns out, my life is not actually low on the stress scale. It also turns out that, along with my perfectionism, self-judgment, fear of disappointing anyone and everyone, and extreme people-pleasing tendencies, I'm good at doing therapy homework. Therapists really like when their clients do their homework and they're willing to keep them around. So, here I am, bunches of handfuls of months later, working on myself. As part of my therapy process, I often journal. Since my therapist and I have now been together for several Augusts, I'm afforded the opportunity to notice a trend.
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August is a wasteland. It's supposed to be a time for squeezing in pool days, creek days, and beach days and soaking every last drop of sunshine from the sky. I try to make it those things, too. But under it all, over it all, really, is the reality that August is painful. I try to push all that out, to focus on the last few gorgeous days of Oregon summer, but it's become nearly impossible. August has become a thing to trudge through, and I hate that.
It's hard to know what to share and what not to about my children. I try to say just enough that people know they're not alone in the trenches of parenting. I try to be transparent enough to ask for prayers without being terribly vague while also protecting my children's rights to their own stories. But sometimes, I do feel like some amount of information is required.
One of my children suffers from extreme anxiety. He doesn't believe that anxiety is real which makes it challenging to work through. He's an anxious, adopted, black teenage boy living in our white world. If you don't understand the layers of pain in that previous sentence, please just take my word for it. Every year, before school starts, this child spirals. The fear of the impending new experience is too much. This year we get to add the fact that he's starting high school. This, on the heels of enduring terrible racially based harassment at the end of middle school. This entire paragraph breaks my heart into a thousand pieces. I want to fix it, to make it all better. I want to go back in time ten years and hold his tiny body while he cries. But he's a man-child now so instead of crying, his anxiety comes out as anger and extreme irritability. I don't blame him. It is so much. Also, though, I can't blame myself for being at the end of my rapidly fraying rope as we deal with it all.
The exciting part of all this is the fact that I was diagnosed, later in life, with my own anxiety. I DO believe it's real and I'm trying my level best to work through it. When my child's anxiety is high, my own shoots through the roof. Add to this that I'm already August Anxious for a new school year starting for my youngest child. This means working with a new teacher who may or may not have compassion for all that he is. She may not understand the way his intrauterine exposure affects his brain. She might not love his strengths more than she tolerates his weaknesses. He might struggle. He may not adjust quickly. He could continue on a trajectory of improvement or he might slide backwards. My intrusive thoughts spiral.
Every August I feel like Chris Pratt in Jurassic World. I have multiple raptors coming at me at once and I can't figure out which raptor to address first. For years, I've suffered from extreme headaches. They seem to be triggered by a plethora of things but stress is at the top of the list. It's no wonder that August always seems particularly headachy. More often than not these days, I have a headache. Sometimes medications work. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes the headache is bad enough that it's difficult to fully function. I try to push through but it's hard. Parenting unique needs through migraine is rough.
This August, as I try to be mindful of what's going on and how it affects my own mental health, I have noticed myself pulling back, hunkering down. It's a natural response to stress and, obviously, headaches, but I know it isn't healthy. It's what I watch my own child do and, when it's my kid, I actively try to combat it. It's harder when it's myself. I find myself thinking, "I can push the grocery store one more day. The kids can live on cheese and baking soda." "That load of laundry can sit for another day." "I can work on that important ministry thing tomorrow."
I don't write this as an excuse or to, in any way, suggest that my own stress is unique or worse than anyone else's. I write it simply as explanation. I've posted a few things on social media but I haven't really been on social media, scrolling, keeping myself up to date on other people's lives. I know it's selfish but I've literally just been trying to keep a handle on my own. If you've felt a pull away, online or, especially in real life, you're not wrong. I'm sorry.
This is also a prayer request. Please keep our kid in your prayers. I want the world for him and it's hard to watch him struggle. And, maybe, pray for me as I swim through the pea soup of an August I used to love with all my heart.
I'm thankful for journaling because, historically, it gets better. The kids adjust to a new school year. My sometimes unbearable headaches tend to ease. My anxiety levels out. We make it through. But the now is hard. There's no quick solution. It has to be sat in and dealt with and struggled through.
I hesitate to say it all, to send it out into the universe. Certainly there is a great deal of oversharing here. It's hard to know the balance between oversharing and vulnerability for the sake of the kingdom. Because, at the end of it all, I want you to be able to say, "My ___________ (friend, pastor's wife, random woman on the Internet, etc) doesn't have her act together at all right now and I can sometimes relate to that. And Jesus loves us all anyway." See, if there's one thing I know, it's that. He's holding us all even when it sometimes doesn't feel like it.
Obviously, I want to insert something uplifting. If you've stuck with me for this long you deserve at least that. Yesterday, I was talking about my child to one of the many mental health professionals in our lives. At one point she said, "Lori, you are doing everything you can right now. I can't think of anything else you could be doing." I almost cried on the spot. I'm prone to thinking I can "do" my way out of a situation. But so often we just have to "be" in the circumstance for however long God wants us there. So often, we feel lonely, isolated, ill-equipped, stranded, abandoned, without resources or help because when He brings the victory, He doesn't want the credit placed on anyone else. If you're in your own August desert right now, He's with you. And that's enough.
As for me, I'm certainly in a desert season. But, "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." (Psalm 27:14)
