swinging and bending, part 8: Elastic Heart

"And I will stay up through the night

And let's be clear, won't close my eyes.

And I know that I can survive

I'll walk through fire to save my life.

And I want it, I want my life so bad

I'm doing everything I can

Then another one bites the dust

It's hard to lose a chosen one

You did not break me

I'm still fighting for peace.

Well, I've got thick skin and an elastic heart,

But your blade—it might be too sharp

But I'm like a rubber band until you pull too hard,

Yeah, I may snap and I move fast

But you won't see me fall apart

'Cause I've got an elastic heart."

--Sia

{somewhat} continued from this series.  

I am no stranger to mental illness.  

Physically, Mental Illness hurt--the raised welts left by a wooden spoon or a hard plastic brush on my small naked backside and thighs subsided.  The stinging red finger marks pulsing with my own heartbeat across my cheeks as a teenager faded.  The headache that was a result of being hit more times than I can count on the head by a heavy college textbook while I sat hovering on the floor, both arms wrapped around my face to withstand the blows only took a couple of hours and 800 milligrams of ibuprofen to melt slowly away.  

But the emotional pain Mental Illness inflicted, those are wounds of a different nature.  Those are the wounds that do not fade--they create.  They create three children with no sense of self, no ability to express healthy emotions, no idea of what they need or how to ask or even have room in their lives for needs even if they could ask for them.  

I sat at the dinner table and watched as Mental Illness hurt my sibling with their words and their hands.  I stared down at the cooked broccoli on my plate, silently pleading with my sibling to just agree--to anything--so it would calm Mental Illness and the storm could pass.  When I began to work through some of these scenes years later in therapy, my silent pleadings for their submission morphed into internal roaring as loud as a lion's--an indignant rage over the knowledge that I had been witness to the breaking of the soul of an innocent child, one I loved so deeply yet could not protect.  

I heard Mental Illness tell my siblings and I why they were choosing to leave our family to be with another, full of self-lies so thick and deep they were convinced those lies were now reality.  Months later I watched Mental Illness sweep back through the home with promises of a fresh start, of trying again, of this time being different.  My ears heard the words but my heart knew--these would fall short and fail as they had already so many times before, as soon as Mental Illness was triggered and rose to the surface once again.

Mental Illness used God to shame, to manipulate, to twist, to control. It wanted the outside of our family to look a certain way to deflect from the inside chaos.  It told my siblings and I that we were only lovable if we played this part--cutting our hair to depict our righteous dedication, wearing clothing that covered the bodies they had created in the way they felt was appropriate and pleasing to God.  Otherwise we were not Good, and Mental Illness made sure we knew it.  

Mental Illness was addiction, divorce, rage, shame, lies, self-loathing, deep chasms of insecurity, manipulation, jealousy, control, and unending amounts of fear.  Mental Illness took every ounce of Safety and replaced it with internal chaos and torment.  It wreaked havoc through my childhood, destroyed a marriage, shattered a family.  In its path of destruction it left pain, confusion, fragility.  

A book once described me, the role of the All-Good Child of Mental Illness,  as "a porcelain soul with tiny fractures," and when I read those words I cried and cried.  They were my worst fears written on paper, naming what I had suspected for so long:  I was broken.  

I have worked and dug and inspected the darkest corners of the fractures inside of me with a magnifying glass.  I have laid out my most terrifying vulnerabilities on a table and offered them up as a sacrifice to Healing.  

I fill the cracks of my own fractures created by the lies of Mental Illness with Truth about my worth, with gentleness and forgiveness for my shortcomings and mistakes, with calling myself out on even the slightest shred of dishonesty and forcing myself to admit to myself and others when it exists, with admiration for not quitting the often-draining work it is to Heal, with acknowledging and often clinging to the beautiful and bright pieces of my experiences, with expressing gratitude for the Life I have been given, and the gift it is to know I can make choices that not only defy the laws Mental Illness tried to place upon me, but to completely abandon those laws and forge a new, healthy path.  I fill the cracks with having boundaries for every relationship in my life--including the one I have with myself, these boundaries creating the ability for me to feel Love all of its forms while also continue to maintain living in a space of emotional integrity.  I fill the cracks with God, and a self-love that can only come from Him.   

I have looked at my past with an objective eye, taking my siblings and I out of it and looking at Mental Illness for who and what it is--two souls even more broken than my own fractured one.  Forgiveness and unending amounts of Love poured out for Mental Illness, when I could view it this way.  Understanding and compassion replaced blame.  

Then I brought the three children back in, and saw us as innocents who--regardless of the broken state of Mental Illness--deserved better, more.  I gave myself permission to allow the emotion for these three who deserved better to take over and drag me under...to Anger, Fear, and extreme Sadness.  I sat inside of these rooms of often suffocating emotion and felt every inch of their walls.  As uncomfortable as it was and at times continues to be, I know I cannot leave the room until I allow it to be as consuming as it needs to.  Only then does it pass, I rise to the surface, and can move on.  

These three children grew up to sit with therapists to help them search for a reality outside of Mental Illness.  They constantly worry and check in with one another, terrified Mental Illness has found its way inside of them.  Any anxious thought, any insecure feeling, any moment of depression has them second-guessing.  They wear Mental Illness like a shadow.  Is it their turn?  Will the shadow catch up and envelope them?  Their ability to gage what is normal is forever skewed.  

For years they have clung to the hope that with time, work, and loving themselves and each other through this, they can break the cycle.  They cling to this hope still.  It is the only thought that keeps the shadow where it belongs, sitting on the outside edges of their lives.  

My sister, my brother and I, we are the ones who Know.  We have sat next to each other on the couch in the middle of the night, wearing pj's and rubbing blurry eyes, our young, bewildered minds trying to make sense of Mental Illness as it fought, yelled, pushed and shoved only feet away from us.  We have heard each other's tears through the adjoining wall.  We have had a front row seat to the screaming, the locked doors, the damage control, the hammers breaking through walls, the uncontrollable sobbing, the consequences, the open-hand slaps, the silent treatments, the barefoot chases on snowy afternoons, the shattered mirrors, and the betrayals.  

We have cried to each other as adults over the pain we experienced, still trying to make sense of it all.  We have called in the middle of the night, showed up on doorsteps, taken last-minute flights and fought for each other to sort through the shadow of Mental Illness and cling to the Light and Love we can feel, and the Worth we see in one another.  We bond over the Knowing--a deep, interwoven bond that at times finds us tethered together, unable to decipher where one of us ends and another begins. 

It is from this tethered place that I write.  It is tough to find boundaries here.  When one of them is in pain, I can not help but feel it with them.  When they are breaking under the pressure of the memories and the faulty core beliefs placed upon them by Mental Illness, I feel the pull of their breaking as though it is an actual part of me.  When the Shadow that has followed for years finally looks as though it may be catching up to one of us, I know I must do all I can to push it back where it belongs.  Internally I struggle between the person I have been, and the person I have worked so hard to become.

I do not know what this last-minute flight will bring.  I do not know if the Light I can still see and the Love I will always feel will be enough.  I worry it will not, I worry I'm too late.  

But I have to try.  

Finding the Magic again.

Leaving:

In the early hours of tomorrow morning, Ben will leave for field training.  For the next 3 weeks he will be gone Monday-Friday, jumping out of helicopters, crawling through trenches, getting tear gassed, shooting guns, and other exciting and really tough things, and will come home Saturday's and Sunday's.

We're all feeling a little sad because not only will we miss him, but this is the first year he won't be there for the kids' first day of school.  That may not be a big deal for some, but it is for us--we recognize we're still living in the years our kids WANT us to be there with them their first day, and we know this won't last forever.  

.........

A Gift:

Our daughter Leah was born with the Gift of Making Everything Magic.  From the time she was a baby,  she could entertain herself with the most simple things like a piece of paper, or a rubber band, or her own fingers because she would see them with eyes that turned them into butterflies, fairies and dolphins.  This is what I love most about her, yet some days I worry.  I know too well the world can be a harsh place for those who see things not as they are, but as what they can become. 

I know, because I was born with this Gift too.   

........

An Ugly side of me:  

As a young girl, I was an optimist.  I remember feeling happy almost all of the time.  I loved easily, sang and danced my way through my days, was surrounded by friends, lost myself inside of a book, laughed a lot, and lived in my imagination.  I believed the world was full of Good and Beauty, and I believed I was going to become someone amazing when I grew up.  

Little by little, I began to change.  Vividly traumatic moments, cruel words, lies, hypocrisy, anger, and volatile tempers taught me to bury this Gift, replacing it with Fear into my world. I tried to hold on and trust in the Good, but with each passing year, as the circumstances remained and continually broke pieces of my optimistic heart, this became more and more difficult.  

I became an anxious, insecure, and wary version of myself, but kept these things hidden.  I could no longer sing or dance in front of others on my own, I had to have the safety of a group.  I hated the spotlight being on me, I was too insecure to stand in it.  The friends I had I believed deserved better than me, so I worked to become someone who could make them laugh, so at least I could contribute something.  

My anxiety and low self worth exhibited itself as not setting goals I felt I was not good enough to achieve.  I felt comfortable in allowing myself to sit in the path of least resistance when it came to academics, dating, jobs, and plans for college.  I no longer dreamed big dreams for myself.

I longed for affection, but was taught and grew to believe that anyone who showed me attention only did because they wanted something from me, and would take advantage of my easily trusting heart. So, I trained myself to stop searching for love built from respect, and allowed myself to fit this role, to be used for another's purposes. 

I formed an outer shell called Prepare For The Worst.  This became my protection from pain, contention, and the Dark parts of the world I had come to understand too closely.  This shell served as the way I separated from the Darkness and did not allow it to drown me.  If I was prepared for it, it could not hurt, or disappoint me.  This is what I told myself.

Then, I met Ben.  

Well, I re-met him, after we had grown up and out of high school and all of the shallow facades we live in during that time.  I re-met him during a time we were both Searching.  For ourselves, for something real, for some way to be who we had been born to be--who we had protected inside for so long with the Shells we created to survive.  I came to realize he had seen even more Darkness than me, and was shocked at this knowledge because for me, he was Sunshine.  He had a Light that had somehow survived all he had been through, and when I was with him, it was contagious.  

It took time, but eventually my Prepare For The Worst shell began to crack, as time and again through our dating and married life, I've found that Light can not only survive Darkness, it can overcome, and shine through it.  

So, I have worked to find myself again.  Habits are hard to break though, and I have stumbled and fallen backwards in my climb.  But I have found my footing, and not stopped climbing.  

It has been tricky at times.  The shell that once protected me was no longer needed, but I knew there was no going back to my naive childhood.  I had to find a balance of a thicker skin while keeping a soft heart, of seeing through the broken pieces of others, while still being wise to not let their broken pieces take me down with them.  And lately I've been really working on a balance of using common sense and knowledge of the World and its Dark and Ugly, combined with an adult-sized Faith and optimism that regardless of any circumstances, God and I make a great team.  

As a wife and mother and individual, I am still working.  Right now I really want that optimism back, that Gift I pushed down and buried so long ago in order to protect it.  

I've been thinking about this, as I've been preparing for Ben to be gone.  I feel like emotionally that protective shell is trying to return, out of fear.  New situations always add a piece of overwhelming for me, and since everything right now falls into that category in my life (finding doctors, babysitters, registering for new schools, meeting new neighbors, making new friends, finding my way/getting lost basically everywhere), I can feel the need to protect, to pre-stress, to worry, and to walk myself through the worst case scenarios while he's away sitting on the edges of my thoughts.

Protect, protect, protect. 

Some form of protection is good, healthy, and necessary.  My form though, causes me to isolate and build walls.  To not let people in, to not emotionally connect.  To not be my best real, vulnerable self.  

I don't want this.  Not for me, not for my kids, not for Ben, not for our lives.  I may never be the carefree child I used to be, but I still have that Gift--I still believe in the Magic.  I'm surrounded by it every day, when I'm out of my shell and looking for it, I always find it.

And so, for the next 3 weeks while he is gone, I will be looking for Magic and documenting it.  Even on the hard or overwhelming days--especially on those.  I don't want the time that I have with the family I've helped create and absolutely adore, to go to waste in the land of fear, guilt, stressing, and insecurity.  I've given too many of my good years over to those anyway, they don't deserve an extra three weeks.  

Because honestly, Life really is such a beautiful thing, isn't it?  

Here's to Finding the Magic.  

swinging and bending, part 7: the Book.

Read the first part of this story, here.  
the second part, here.

the third part, here.

the fourth part, here.

and the fifth part, here.

and the sixth part, here.

THE ALL-GOOD CHILD:


"Perhaps the most devastating psychic conflict the all-good child experiences is inauthenticity--feeling as if those who perceive her as good or competent are mistaken.  

The all-good child is the parentified child--trained to parent the parent.  All-good children are typically obedient and loyal, and may function as little therapists in their families.  

All-good children repress awareness of their true feelings and, consequently, are likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Because they are preoccupied with the emotional state of others, they have difficulty experiencing pleasure.  Although they are acutely perceptive, they lack insight into their own psyche, and may be unaware of subtle depression.  

They.....may feel undeserving of a good life.  They feel as though they have already been given too much, and do not feel entitled to having more.  They may compulsively provide for others what they need for themselves.

Consequently, the all-good child is susceptible to emotional depletion because of the compulsive approval-seeking behavior.  They can feel overwhelmed with responsibility for caring for others, yet not deserving of being cared for themselves.  They have difficulty articulating their feelings and needs, and are extremely uncomfortable with recognition and attention.

In adult relationships, they are often overcommitted and emotionally preoccupied because they fear disappointing others.  They simply cannot say no.  Minor mistakes can trigger a catastrophic plunge in self-esteem, and internalized anxiety prevents them from enjoying their accomplishments.  The emotional energy of the all-good child is heavily invested in avoiding mistakes that could shatter the foundation of the self.

If it were possible to x-ray the self of the all-good child, one might find a porcelain soul with tiny fractures.  Although outwardly appearing uninjured, a child with a fractured soul lives with an inner sense of fragility.  All-good children suffer silently, unable to articulate the source of their pain that is too deep and too old to identify.  Although a fractured soul cannot fully mend, the all-good child learns to protect it from further injury.  Defenses such as denial, repression, and sublimation keep awareness of their pain at bay.  

While all-good children need therapy as much as the no-good children, they are unlikely to seek treatment."

  




Late one night, in the summer of 2008, I shuddered as I read these words.

I knew this "All-Good Child" well.  She had blonde hair, blueish/green eyes and dimples.  She laughed easily and rarely cried.  She was there whenever anyone needed help, but could not ask for support because she could not even recognize her own needs.  She hated being on stage, or celebrating her birthday, or being the new girl, or announcing pregnancies--anything that put her in the center of attention.  Her emotions were based on the emotions of those around her--if they were content, so was she.  If they were sad, she was rushing to comfort, her heart breaking with theirs.  If they were angry, she was afraid, and tried to pacify them with either humor or kindness.  She did not know who she was as an individual, but I knew her.

She was who I looked at in the mirror every day.

I was staying at my dad and stepmom's home for a few weeks on our way from the group home in North Carolina to Arizona, where we would begin Ben's journey of doctoral school.  My brother Tyler had let me borrow the Book, one he'd been recommended by a therapist he'd been seeing for a couple of years.

"She said I might be able to find something that relates to my childhood, but I haven't read it yet.  See what you think and let me know," he said, as he brought it to me.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but started reading.  In less than 48 hours I finished the Book, underlining and highlighting entire sections of it.

I called my brother.  "Holy crap, Ty.  HOLY CRAP.  Have you even started this book?  I'm going to have to buy you another copy, I need to keep this one,"  I said over the phone.

I explained to him the Book had shaken me, in a most unexpected way.  I felt at times like the author had filmed scenes from my childhood and written about them.  In the Book, I read about my parents, about my siblings, about myself.  I read about my grandmother.  I read about who I had become as an adult, my weaknesses and strengths.  I read about my marriage.  I read what I would continue to struggle with as I aged, and I read that I would be the least likely of the entire group to seek therapy--because I viewed myself as a survivor of trauma and doing "just fine," instead of as someone who could not recognize my own needs and emotions due to stuffing them down for so long.

It was both validating and terrifying, to read the words of my life.  Validating to know someone out there really understood; terrifying to realize that now that I knew, I would need to do something about it.  I had never been to therapy before, and had attached the stigma I know so many attach to it:  therapy was for people with real problems, who are a mess, who can't cope, and the list goes on.  I wasn't fitting into any of those categories, yet I knew after reading this, therapy was something I needed to pursue.

This Book altered the course of my life, in many ways.  It continues to alter it, for the better.  Because of this Book, I was brought down a path of self-awareness that eventually helped me to find self-worth, learning to untangle my emotions and needs from those of others around me.  Eventually it is what led me to seek help when my lack of ability to believe I deserved good in my life created situations that threatened to take the things I loved most away.

And when my own self worth was finally planted and I could truly feel it, I finally had the ability to help others, with similar stories, find theirs too.

The Book started me on this journey, but it took years before I could reach the end of it, an ending that led me to much closer to Peace.  But there were much more difficult things I had to face first.....

swinging and bending, part 6: the tempest of divorce.

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings."

--Anais Nin

Read the first part of this story, here.  
the second part, here.

the third part, here.

the fourth part, here.

and the fifth part, here.

through my childhood, my parents had separated and spoken of divorce so many times that i grew to expect it.  each time they wouldn't follow-through with the threats of dissolving their marriage, i became more callous to the idea,  disconnecting myself from the tumultuous thunderstorms of their relationship in order to protect my heart.  i loved both of them deeply, and internally struggled navigating my dynamic with them as their child, while watching them hurt each other as spouses.

so when the separation and impending divorce was announced, i was taken by surprise.  the timing was off--they were through the most stressful parts of life, on the other side of child rearing and the growing pains of early marriage.  there was a lot of heartache in their years together, and i viewed them as either survivors and characters of a great love story, or two people who had learned to cope, settle and enable.  i guess when things grew quiet for them, reality set in and it was too much.

when we were told the paperwork for divorce had actually begun, my siblings and i were all grown, married, and living with our own families.  i naively assumed we would be left out of the gritty details we had been sheltered from as children.  instead, the underbelly of their relationship was exposed, bringing forth details of resentment and pain that had lasted for over three decades. i found myself questioning all i thought i had known--and felt tricked by a life of possible hypocrisy, being brought up in a home i was now being told was run by two people who, at times, were doing the opposite of what they had taught me to do.  i didn't know how to make sense of a childhood built on an idealistic viewpoint, unable to decipher truth from what was now being told to me through tears, humiliation, and gritted teeth that were searching for validation.

during their separation, i felt placed between two victims who wanted me to fight their battle and join their side--one thundering so loudly at times it was deafening, the other like lightning, striking quietly and randomly but leaving a singed scar.  emotionally i shut down, tuning out the conversation when it turned to character defamation and verbal assaults.  forming any type of boundary was extremely difficult for me during this time.  i loved my mom and dad, and wanted desperately to try to ease their pain and carry some of their burden.  when i couldn't, it tortured me to realize there was nothing i could do to stop the tempest between them that continued for months.

with my lack of boundaries, i felt like a ping-pong ball in a wickedly fast and angry game.  i continued trying to fill my role as the "good child" and be there for them no matter what.  this quickly took its toll, because you can't be the "good" everything to everyone, especially in situations like this.  my siblings were in the same boat, trying to navigate their love for them outside of the mistakes they had made toward each other and move forward in this new dynamic.  we couldn't find a smooth transition, and my parents' need to defend their own characters against accusations form the opposing side only made it more difficult.  i worried we were pawns in the death match of a 32 year relationship.

when ben and i accepted the job in north carolina, i felt relief with the distance of moving across the country.  i could no longer physically be put in the middle of their divorce, and managing the group home gave very little space for me to give to anyone else emotionally.  i could listen to details of the latest fight through the phone, and stay detached.

unfortunately, my older sister bore the brunt after i left, and i could hear from the despair in her voice how she was slowly being destroyed.  i felt guilty for abandoning her, and am just now realizing the full effect the year of my parents' divorce had on her and her family.

while we were in the group home, i was quickly learning two things:

1)  all about boundaries:

what they were, why they were healthy/necessary, that i did not know how to have them, and that i not only needed them in my relationships with the teenagers, but i needed to implement them in every relationship.

2) that i had true anxiety:

i knew i had issues with caleb driven by fear, but i assumed it was because of the trauma we had been through with him.  living in the group home triggered a deeper form.  i had been thrown back into an environment that was out of my control;  full of contention, chaos, and anger.  just like my childhood, i could not love them enough to make the madness stop.  i rarely slept, and when i did, i had terrifying nightmares.  there were moments of happiness and laughter, but my heart could not find peace.  when i finally brought my symptoms up to ben, i realized the environment in the group home was mirroring much of the environment of my childhood home.  i talked about the idea of therapy, but wanted to see if leaving the group home would help settle the anxiety inside.

once our year contract was over, we left for arizona to start grad school.  in between our moves, i stayed in utah for a few weeks to visit family.  during my visit, my little brother handed me a book that completely altered my course in life.

swinging and bending, part 5: a friendship with fear.

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.” 

― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Read the first part of this story, here.  
 the second part, here.

 the third part, here.

and the fourth part, here.

after we moved from my parents' basement, ben and i settled into our quiet life in the apartment in spanish fork.  my anxiety as a mother to my son with special needs continued, and fear took on a new form:  isolation.  most of the time i kept to myself, taking long daily walks with caleb during good weather.  i convinced myself it was just my homebody tendencies, but deep down i knew it wasn't true.  this was more than just loving the comforts of my own home, this was creating a life of control, structure and order out of fear and survival.  ben and i went through the motions of church callings, accomplishing what was required, but didn't open up to anyone outside of family and close friends about caleb's struggles and continual demands.

the high maintenance of caleb's care kept me occupied, and when others volunteered to baby-sit for me--even family--i kindly refused.  truthfully, i still couldn't trust anyone except myself and ben to take care of him.  on the rare occasion i said yes, i didn't relax during my time away, tortured with the "what if" questions spinning in my head.  i was a classic "helicopter parent" before i even knew the definition of it.

fear continued to surround me in a storm, becoming my best friend.  it fell like raindrops in every facet of my life, helping me create obsessive control that built a false sense of security.  i didn't know that the frail bubble of fear i had formed to keep my son safe would soon pop, as they usually always do.

caleb had been having minor seizures starting at 10 days old, but when his 31 minute grand mal seizure happened when he was 18 mos old, i was traumatized.  i realize that most mothers would be traumatized, but because i had already been working so closely with fear, letting it trick me into believing i was the one keeping him safe and alive....well, in those terrifying days following the seizure when i was home alone with him, i had to sit in the knowledge that i actually had no control over the situation.  the trauma of having almost two years of built up fake-control and false-sense of security ripped away left me completely vulnerable and alone.  i knew then that my best friend was my worst enemy, and a liar.  the problem was, i didn't know yet how to fight back, combatting the lies with truth, or more importantly, how to leave the relationship with fear.  so, i coped.  i inched through each day, continuing to isolate, praying for God to help me to find a way out.  i see now how He was preparing me to find that way, guiding me to a path that would require extremely hard work.

we were in our apartment for a year when we came to the conclusion that ben was in a dead-end job, and decided to put our life in God's hands.  we prayed and made a list of what we could do to find a career path that would help us not only financially, but also emotionally.

ben knew he would never be satisfied in a cubicle.  more than anything he wanted to help others but was unsure of which path to take.  go back to school?  take another pay cut to start in a field that was severely overworked and underpaid?  so, we set a date, giving ourselves two months of searching every avenue.  we told God that after two months if we were still out of options, we were going pick up our belongings and move to texas, which was where ben's oldest brother and family were living.  we would risk it all for a fresh start.  we picked january 22, 2007 as the day we would make our decision, and got to work.

i began job hunting for ben during the day, sending in resumes everywhere i could.  he continued trying to transfer within his company, letting his boss and co-workers know he was looking for other options. they loved and valued him, but told him their hands were tied.  ben interviewed for several jobs, and looked into higher education, but was only met with dead ends.  as the date crept closer, we prepared ourselves for what seemed the inevitable--moving to texas. we began to get excited about a scary, but fresh start.

on the afternoon of january 22, i sat down to the computer one last time, searching for any other options.  i found an online local newspaper and clicked on the classified section.

and there it was.

goosebumps ran up my arms as i read the job posting for a married couple to become "Family Teachers" in north carolina, managing and running a home filled with teenagers who had been diagnosed with mental and behavioral problems.  tears filled my eyes--not because it was something i wanted to do.  in fact, i felt the opposite, with zero desire to take this position.  but when i read the words and researched the company, the tears filled my eyes because it was one of the very few and far-between moments in my life that i knew without a doubt, it was what we were supposed to do.

when ben arrived home that night, i showed him the job opening and he felt exactly the same way.  we sent in our application and put off the move to texas, knowing we had been led to this very moment in our lives.


it was during this same time that my parents decided to divorce.

swinging and bending, part 4: the breaking.

{image found here.}

Read the first part of this story, 
here.  

and the second part,
here.

and the third part,

here.

Round and around and around we go...

The reason I hold on

'Cause I need this hole gone.

Funny, you're the broken one,

But I'm the only one who needed

Saving.

--"Stay"

Rihanna

i was 24 years old when caleb was born.

we brought him home, and i remember immediately feeling protective.  at 4 lbs, 9 oz, he could only eat from a syringe with a small tube hanging from it, guided into his mouth by either mine or ben's pinky finger.  he struggled in almost every area--sleeping, eating, pooping, gaining weight, and mostly, in being content.

his screaming began at around 10 days old and was followed quickly by his seizures.  with his screaming, something inside of me broke--the dream of having the happy, fat, cooing child.  idealistic hope was gone and replaced with desperation.  i quickly turned into the mother i had previously judged and scorned; ignoring all of the books i had read, i resorted to doing whatever it took to silence his cries.

when the seizures were finally diagnosed at 2 1/2 months, another piece inside of me broke.  the piece that knew what faith meant.  i became a mother full of fear, and without knowing it, began to believe that i was singlehandedly keeping this tiny, sick boy alive.

ben was an amazing father and i knew he loved caleb deeply, but seemed to have a more casual attitude toward the instructions we were repeatedly given about his care by specialists.  his mantra of "oh, he'll be fine" terrified me, because it meant i was out in this scary world alone with a special-needs baby.  his actions deepened the fear.  we would talk about how we were going to handle big family situations with caleb, and i was in sync with what the doctors were telling us, to be extremely cautious.  ben would say he felt the same, then change his mind when we actually got in the situation.  i couldn't understand what was going on, and internalized it as somehow my fault.  that he thought i was too crazy, or overprotective, but didn't want to tell me.  so i tried to stuff down the confusion and distrust, not realizing it manifested itself as more fear.  even though there were others around supporting me...i felt i was the only one truly bearing this burden.  i became a control freak, fueled by anxiety and "what if's" that would run through my head all hours of the day and night.

ben and i have talked about this point in our lives many times, and how it was a crossroads for us.  up until then, we had been a strong team, weathering the outside storms between extended family together.  now the rain began to pour inside of our safe place, the winds carrying me to one side and ben to the opposite.

"i felt like i lost my wife,"  he has said.

"i felt like the carefree, worry-free, easily happy person i was--died.  and, i felt like i could no longer trust you to be honest with me, because you didn't want to hurt me,"  i have said.

so, there was that.

we had hoped that having caleb would help bring about a merger to the sides of family who were still contending, and maybe he did.  but it seemed like more of a cold war began, where no one really spoke to each other at family events, just passing icy smiles and nervous glances.  i was so focused on dealing with caleb, that i stopped noticing.

we lived in the basement apartment of my parents' home until caleb was 10 months old.  they had a marriage that had been full of ups and downs.  when things were good between them, they were great.  but during the time we were living there, signs pointed toward them taking a turn for the worse.

i had been witness to this for many years and had grown somewhat of a callous skin to it, but after living in a peaceful, virtually contention-free marriage for 2 years, the understanding of just how unhealthy things were became glaringly acute.  i grew up only knowing this as my only perspective on marriage, and thought it was normal.  i now knew it was not.

this was ben's first time to have a front row seat to some difficult moments.  because he loved them both, and he could not change or help their situation, this began to take its toll on him.  i could see him beginning to separate from them, requesting more space and a clarity on boundaries to define "our own family time." i could understand his desire, but because i had slipped back into my family role as buffer and peacemaker, i didn't see these new boundaries as necessary.  i felt needed, and worth more when i played this role.  boundaries and separation took that from me.  i wavered when it came to upholding them, continually giving excuses for this justification or that. but the truth is, i didn't know how to say no without feeling guilty, and i didn't know how to feel good about myself unless i was acting the part of the "good girl" that i had played for so long.

however, i did have my eyes opened as an adult viewing my parents as an adult.  even though i was still young in married life and motherhood, i began to see them as equals.

during the year we were there, i saw a cycle in their relationship that scared me, because it resonated inside as patterns of my own. enabling one's anger by allowing mistreatment, at the sake of "doing whatever it took" to make another happy.  then, because of fearing the anger or huge emotional reaction, becoming passive aggressive and covertive, using small twists of reality to portray a situation so it would be easier for another to accept.  using self-lies to justify these twists, that the intent behind doing it is to really "help another."  then the lies would be caught, and the reaction was so harsh and forceful that it caused it all to begin again.  i wasn't doing this in my own marriage, but could see glimpses of where i had done it in other relationships, past and present.

i distinctly remember having one specific conversation in that basement.

"why are you allowing this?"  i asked.

"because, when the time comes for me to die, i want to be able to look my Father in Heaven in the eyes and tell him i did everything i could.  that even if it meant taking the aftermath of the anger i didn't deserve, and staying and loving and trying, never giving up--no matter what--that He will tell me i did a good job."

"but," i replied, "i feel like you're just the pillow, catching another's fall.  which is great for the one falling, to have something soft to land on.  but what happens to the pillow?  it's flattened, with all of its feathers slammed out of it.  misshapen and crunched.  why would God want you to sacrifice yourself for another, at the risk of your own demise?  i understand selflessness in a relationship, but not to this extent.  why are they worth better treatment than you're worth?  that just doesn't sit right with me.  what is Jesus for, then?  what is His sacrifice for?  He took this, so that we wouldn't have to.  He is the pillow, not you.  He is the Savior, not you.  but if you continually put yourself in His place, then the one falling will never have to learn to rely on Him to catch their fall, if they can always rely on you.  meanwhile, you're breaking apart here.  i can see it.  i have seen it, for years.  and when you say 'no matter what,' do you really mean that? do you know what you're saying?  what if things get worse?  do you have any limits, any boundaries?  will there be anything that will cause you to say to yourself 'I deserve better' and demand for it to stop?"

that night, somewhere deep down, i was also speaking to myself.  

i could see the damage they had caused each other through the years.  i could also see myself in these things, through them.  the problems in my past relationships became obvious, recognizing the enabling and savior role i had accepted either to change the other or in an attempt to feel some sort of self worth.

in my marriage it was still difficult to detect because both of us had the same unhealthy piece of wanting to be the pleaser, instead of one extreme and another.  when we talk about it now, we can see it inside of the situations surrounding caleb.  neither ben nor myself had been completely honest, stuffing down uncomfortable emotions so we wouldn't have to have uncomfortable conversations.  our dishonesty, though small and unintentional,  caused a resentment to form that took years to understand and undo.

what was finally clear during that year in the basement apartment, was where i had learned and formed this unhealthy, codependent, enabling part.  i had been watching it unfold in front of me for my entire life.

luckily, ben and i still loved being together.  we both pushed our uncomfortable feelings aside, and tried our best to enjoy what we could of being a young family under stressful situations.  we celebrated the milestones caleb would make, breathed an enormous breath of fresh air as his continual crying finally began to cease when he was around 5 months old, and found our new normal creating happiness within the reality of life with our difficult, but miraculous baby.  in many ways, our love strengthened during that time.

ben was hired at a new job about 2 hours south, and we decided to take it.  by this point, we were waist-deep into appointments with specialists and physical therapists and developmental pediatricians for caleb.  my life was consumed with him.  and because of the fear that had taken on full force, i rarely trusted him with anyone besides myself and ben.  when i was around, sure.  but leaving him?  no way.  i had told myself i wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to him, and since no one really knew how to take care of him the way i did, if something happened when i left him to--heaven forbid--go on a date with my husband, that would also be unforgivable.

as the breaking inside continued, i clung more tightly to the only thing that was becoming familiar to me:

fear.

swinging and bending, part 3: the carrying.

{can't find the link to this picture--found on google images}

Read the first part of this story, 
here.  

and the second part,
here.



as luck would have it, once ben finished school we found ourselves moving back to utah.  we were jobless, penniless, and insurance-less.  i was 5 months pregnant with our first child, a boy who was going to be called caleb.  we moved into the basement apartment of my parents' home, with ben's family home just a couple of streets away.

we decided to try our luck with a new path: finding a career.

placing all of our eggs into the basket of luck was tricky, and we returned back to the drawing board empty-handed time and again. ben was severely discouraged--this fresh college graduate, who had set out to change the world with his dreams, wound up working for $7.50 an hour taking care of adults with autism.  as hard as it was for him to feel like he was continually failing in the world's definition of "provider," he was surprisingly fulfilled in this job.  he knew when he clocked out at night that he had helped someone who was unable to help themselves, and this meant more to him than any amount of money deposited in our bank account on payday.  it's in the seed that was planted during this time that i can see God's plan for him, for us.  this was the beginning of his journey in the mental health field.

with a baby on the way and the intent to live in our own space, he moved on to a new job, working 2 days on, 1 day off at a lock down facility for troubled youth.  i spent most of my time at home, growing a baby, grateful for a break from being the full-time provider.

living in the basement with my parents was somewhat surreal, in the way that i vacillated between who i had been and who i was becoming.  i didn't know how to navigate the extraction from my previous family role while living in the environment that bred it, and found myself slipping easily back into who i had been before married life.  i took on the role of pleaser, buffer and rescuer without even realizing it.

the storms between our loved ones continued, and it became increasingly difficult to navigate between them.  we tried to declare our little space as neutral ground, offering peace and switzerland to whoever entered it.  but because of hard feelings between others, our neutral territory didn't last long and the boundaries we asked to be upheld were continually crossed. i was fearful of the possibility of contention to bring it up when it happened, so i stayed quiet and accepted what i believed i could not stop, instead going behind the scenes to do damage control.

i began again to carry what others gave me; their anger, their fear, their insecurities, their guilt, their shame.  i told myself i could take it, because i was the "good girl," the obedient one who would be there "no matter what."  subconsciously i stood with my arms outstretched, letting the toxicity of my loved ones pile on, until my back ached and my arms and legs began to bend under the weight of their load i accepted to bear.

ben sensed the change in me as i reverted, but didn't know enough yet to put his finger on it and say it out loud.  as grateful as he was for the comfortable surroundings we were quickly and graciously provided when we needed it, he told me he felt an urgency for us to move out--he was feeling suffocated.  i could see glimpses of the unhealthy dynamics going on, but only with the part he was playing in his family instead of my own.  it was easy for me to recognize his aching back, the arms and legs bending under the weight of his own role returning.

as turbulent as this time sounds, there were really a lot of good memories during the year we spent in the basement apartment.  but this was an integral point in our lives, where i can now see the carrying and bending that eventually led to the breaking years down the road.

while we were still living there, caleb was born.