Climb Into My Skin

Stigma, taboo, frowned-upon, shame, unmentionable, guilt, sin, laziness, self-pitying.  

In the past several months, I repeatedly have come across these words in the articles and blogs I read, the conversations I have, and the constant inner-monologue that runs like the ticker tape at the bottom of a news station.  First, a bit of back story.

I am undeservedly blessed.  I have an amazing family who supports me; I have some fantastic friends who rock at being there in the struggles and sharing the silliness; I am fortunate to have a job that may drive me bananas at times but is my true passion; I have a lovely home that keeps me warm and dry; I have a crazy pup who makes me laugh even in the midst of me scolding her for chewing the edge of a windowsill or some other bizarre thing; I am so well-fed I can afford to lose quite a few pounds; I am able to walk without pain, sleep without disruption, and am generally pretty healthy.

I know these things in my head and heart.

Approximately two years ago, however, I began to feel blue, for lack of a better description.  At first, it was just there, rather like a nagging mosquito buzz in the soundtrack of my life.  Gradually, it grew, so gradually that I was not cognizant of it even happening.  I stopped working out.  I stopped reading for pleasure.  I stopped listening to music.  I stopped praying.  I stopped going to church.  Then, for three months last summer, I rarely got off the couch much less left the house.  I watched eight seasons of a television series.  I cried.  A lot.  Sometimes because of the television series, sometimes just because.  If people called to make plans, I often found excuses not to go.  The mosquito had sucked just about all the blood; I basically stopped living.

Again, I knew I was blessed.  In my head and in my heart.  It didn’t matter, though, because I could not get up off the couch.  I could not talk about how sad I felt.  In fact, I actually began to berate myself for being so ungrateful and weak and pathetic.  There is nothing like a heap of self-loathing to top off other tumultuous emotions.

To say depression is misunderstood and, consequently, dismissed is an understatement.  As many others have written, most people hear the word and think, “She’s just sad” or “You can pull yourself out of it!”  I confess to thinking those very things despite actually having a degree in psychology.  I don’t think it anymore.

When I played volleyball in college, I sprained my ankle fairly badly.  Determined not to miss a day of practice, I bit my tongue and cheeks to keep from crying out in pain when the trainer tested my strength.  I succeeded in fooling her only to go down in the first drill.  It didn’t matter that my hands were just fine, or that my lungs were fit, or that my other leg was functioning just dandy.  It didn’t matter that I wanted so badly to be in the drill, my desire could not heal the sprain.  It took time and treatment beyond sheer will.  

This is how I see my depression.  Sometimes, I want more than anything to be happy about all of the blessings, about a silly joke, about the sunrise, but I just cannot.  It’s as though I stood up without thinking and put my full body weight on a sprained ankle: it just doesn’t hold.  Sometimes, I hobble along, feeling the joy and the pain simultaneously, but it’s still there.

After a routine blood test at the end of the summer, time spent tweaking dosages, and a frank conversation with a compassionate, patient, and pretty awesome doctor, the self-loathing is starting to abate.  The reason I say starting is because those awful, awful words keep coming up. 

At the mention of being depressed, or taking medication for that depression, I have received the gamut of responses.  Fortunately, most have been positive and supportive, but there have been misunderstanding and derision.  From “How long do you have to be on the meds?” to “Why on earth do you need to be on Prozac? You’re stronger than that.”  I think most of the people with whom I have shared accept it while not necessarily understanding it, which is one of the greatest things about unconditional love.  

Imagine being paralyzed, unable to speak or move, but fully alert mentally.  As much as you want to tell everyone how you feel, show everyone what you can do, your body is limiting the ways in which you can.  Or, imagine being locked in a room alone with a constant, unending soundtrack of the most negative things about life and yourself playing ceaselessly.  You cannot get out of the room; you cannot turn it off.  And it goes on for hours, days, weeks, months, and/or years...  Both of these are beyond your control and both are incapacitating.  You cannot do it alone.  

My medication unlocks the door.  It turns off the sad and self-deprecating monologue.  It transcends the crutch so I can walk strong.  It destroys the life-sucking mosquito.  It does not make me weak or mean I am crazy.  My medication gives me a voice that had been trapped in the labyrinthine maze of depression.  

An amazing friend of mine recently shared a blog with me, and that blog had links to several others that are all worth reading.  There has been an article trending on yahoo about moms on Xanax.  While I am not a mom, I am a woman struggling with depression.  For those of you who think someone can simply snap out of it, I wonder if you have ever “snapped out of” a kidney stone.  For those of you who think medication is a crutch, I would ask if you believe insulin a crutch for the diabetic or nitroglycerin a crutch for the cardiac patient.  For those of you who think depression is sinful or means a lack of faith, I would encourage you to revisit Job or Psalms.  

For those of you who do not understand depression, I am thankful because you have obviously never felt it.  It is my hope that you never do.  Perhaps, though, with a little compassion and empathy, you can try to heed Harper Lee’s advice:  You never really know someone “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Makin' Me Tired

I say this quite a bit when I am at work.  

For those of you who don’t know, I am a teacher.  An English teacher by title, but truth-be-told, I am pretty sure I am a life teacher more than anything else.  Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some literature, and I love when my students discover a piece of writing that speaks to them, but I would argue I spend 80% of my time teaching life skills.  Responsibility, respect, compassion, critical thinking, patience, accountability, prioritizing, planning, empathy, integrity, pride, work ethic, coping with emotional turmoil, to name a few.  

A little background about being a teacher: while there are some teachers who do the bare minimum, the majority of us spend an inordinate amount of time planning.  For English/Literature in particular, in addition to reading the literature for ourselves, sometimes for the first time, sometimes for the seventh, in order to be able to answer questions, we also spend time considering an inordinate amount of other things.  Some of the things I consider when planning include what I need to do to introduce the unit so the students have a foundation to help them grasp the material, what activities they will do during that introduction that are relevant to what they will need to do in college and/or life.  How do I support the reading: study guide, required written summaries, blogging, class discussion, reflection prompts, comprehension quizzes, character charts, and/or podcasts?  I will spare you the details of the final evaluation preparation because the list is longer than the one above.  

To be honest, one can find so much of this online or in a teacher’s edition, if you have one of those.  It is also very easy and tempting to simply copy and use the same materials from year to year.  I have been guilty of both at times, but for the most part, these are things I have to consider and decide upon every year.  In fact, most of the time when I come up for an idea for one of my classes and run it past my co-teacher, she looks at me and says, “You know, I think we did that a couple of years ago.  Do you want me to check my files?”  I have several very good friends who also happen to be English teachers who positively rock at their jobs.  I also have several good friends who teach other subjects.  They are creative, innovative, demanding, passionate, collaborative... well, you get the picture.  I am willing to bet that each of them could add so much more to this list that I’ve forgotten.

I am not listing this to brag or lament about the difficulties of teaching, but rather for me to help explain why I say those words every. single. day.  You see, after all of the fun, and I mean that literally because it is my favorite part of teaching, of planning, when the time comes to actually teach what’s been planned, the kids remind me that their worlds ain’t exactly about literature.  They remind me when they get into a heated argument about whether or not the window should be open when the room is hotter than the surface of the sun and the snow flurries from outside melt before they can actually land on the countertop.  They remind me when it is the 110th day of school and they continue to come to a class in which we write every day and ask me for a pen or pencil.  They remind me when they walk out of class, leaving their novels and notebooks on the desk despite having homework.  They remind me.

This is why I say those words every day.  It’s not the teaching part of it because after they all finally get seated and start working, when I am done breaking up the window fight, have distributed all the pencils and paper and extra copies of the books, when I actually have an opportunity to teach about the power of words, I could go on for days!  It is the 4,987,367,093,256 other things that my college did pretty much nothing for which to prepare me.  To be real, people who are considering education should take parenting classes because frankly, that’s what I feel like - the mom away from home.  And I don’t say that to insult the parents; some of them are fantastic and others are lacking.  To put it simply, when my youngest niece asked me why I don’t have any children, I replied, “Because I get about 100 new children every year.”

I have a group of students this year, many of them for the second time around because I taught the younger grade last year.  To say they are challenging is an understatement.  They are bone-wearying, gray-hair-creating, frustrating-until-my-limbs-are-shaking exhausting.  And they’ve been that way for most of their academic careers from what I understand.  If I could print the graphic at the top of this page on a shirt, I would have enough shirts printed for every day.  Then, instead of correcting them, repeating directions, shushing them, etc., I would just point to my shirt.

This week, though, three of those energy-sucking creatures got into another heated argument.  No, it wasn’t about the window - that happened the day before - but it was about the characters in the book they were reading.  They had a legitimate fifteen-minute heated debate about the best way to describe them.  One of those boys, who last year wasn’t much interested in the academic part of school, sat and read his book in study hall in my room, then without being asked, put all the laptops away and plugged them in.  

I have never birthed a child, much less raised one that came from my body.  And the moms out there, you can correct me if I am wrong, but I have to imagine this warmth in my heart is a little spark of pride at their growth.  Mind you, it could very well be the fact that my room feels like the tropical forest on the hottest day of the year, but I think it’s probably pride.  Maybe, just maybe, being tired is worth it.

Falling in Love with Edward Cullen and Other Appetites

I have been a reader for as long as I can remember.  I can recall getting books Christmas morning and finishing them by Christmas night.  Two caveats: I often skimmed the books because I was so excited to find out what happened next, so my comprehension wasn’t necessarily all that hot.  Second, this usually meant I was holed up in some corner reading instead of interacting with my family, which often caused my mom to come snatch me up to join the festivities.  

Some of the titles I read when I was 11 or 12 were quite adult in nature: think V.C. Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic series.  Some were more geared toward young adults (The Incredible Cat Caper), some sophisticated in the science (anything Dean Koontz), and some flat-out creepy (Stephen King, anyone?).  When I think about the books I read when I was in tweendom, I wonder if I truly understood the concepts or if my naive brain just read on the surface level.

I recently read a book about reading in schools, and the premise is that the way reading is presented and “encouraged” in schools is the way to surely kill the pleasure of reading.  I couldn’t agree more.  What was interesting, though, in the beginning of the book was an anecdote he shared about a group of girls reading an article and struggling with it.  The article was about terrorism in the post-9/11 world, and the girls had to answer questions, one of which was about the goals of al Qaeda.  When they called the teacher over to ask for help, they explained that they read the article but they couldn’t answer the one question because they didn’t know who “Al” was.  A perfect example of what I have been coming to believe more and more the longer I read and teach: we get out of literature what we bring to it.


The books I read when I was younger would taste different now.  The horror of a mother locking her children in an attic would leave a bitter aftertaste.  The antics of a would-be preteen detective discovering the identity of a cat burglar would be the lingering sweetness of the penny candy I used to get at the dairy every summer.  A creeping clown hiding in sewers? Acrid on my tongue.

It is not just age, or experience, as was the case with the girls who weren’t familiar with al Qaeda. I believe our emotional states at the time we read a book will render that book powerful enough to knock the wind from us or bland enough to collect dust on the shelf, never to be read again.  Aside: I am an avid re-reader!  There are times when a movie jogs a memory of a phrase, or a TV show reminds me of a plot, or a song elicits the mood of a favorite book, and I quite literally go to my book room to find the book and find the spot... with some of the books, I know them so well I can open to the general area and find it within minutes.  Others take yet another re-reading to get there.


Many people think I am nuts for re-reading, but I so frequently find deeper meanings or more relevant insights or just funny stuff that I missed the first time(s) in my quest to discover the ending.  For instance, I have re-read To Kill a Mockingbird every year for the past 15 while I am teaching it.  Every year, I discover something new.  There was the year that I was reading aloud, and I read the name of the dog’s owner.  You know, the dog Atticus had to kill?  Yeah, well, when I asked my squirrelly juniors to tell me about Harry Johnson, there were more than a few chuckles.  It wasn’t until I had said it out loud that I realized the double entendre.  Then there was the year when we were going through Atticus’s closing argument, and Lee actually writes the words “no child left behind.”  My epiphany, and horror, was thinking that the horrendous law that has made education barely tolerable came from one of the best books ever written.  (If it did, Ms. Lee, I apologize on behalf of humanity for it.)

There are young adult books I read now that I know would have zoomed right over my head if I had actually read them as a young adult.  The Book Thief? There is no way I would have caught, and thus fell in love with, the subtle allusions and beautiful reflection of such an ugly time.  The Hunger Games?  I don’t think my 14-year-old-brain would have made the connection to the politics and governmental allegory.  Harry Potter?  Please, I can’t even begin... that’s another writing of its own.

I don’t think books are the only medium to which this philosophy applies.  I think of movies, TV shows, songs that I have loved and hated, and I might feel differently about them now if I were to experience them for the first time again.  I think of how I have avoided things I thought inane or above me only to discover, at the right time, they are exactly what I need.

Now for my admission, much to the dismay of many of my friends and the delight of my sister and niece: I have discovered the Twilight series.  Mind you, I have not read the books but watched the movies.  I have read the summaries of the books, looked for clips of the last movie that I haven’t seen yet, and researched some of the themes.  I have even downloaded one of the songs from a soundtrack.  


I find this laughable, truly.  I am not a vampire or a romance kind of reader.  I mean, there were werewolves in Harry Potter, but they weren’t quite the same.  There has been romance in many of the books I have read, but it’s never been the central plotline.  That I have become so transfixed with this particular series has intrigued me, and thanks to a little research and reflection, I have realized it captivates me because of the themes: that each of us can choose our paths not based on things beyond our control but rather based on who we want to be, and that when you love someone, you want to protect them from the hurts of the world.  The former is something I have been working on for the past several months while the latter is something I have always believed.

They say the taste buds regenerate every 5-7 years.  If this holds true, what we once find sour may become sweet, and what we once find savory may become bitter.  The important thing, I have learned, is to be open not only in trying something for the first time.  Sometimes, our appetites change with the experiences we have.  The aroma that once made us turn our noses begins to draw us in, and the favorite tang of a trusted dish becomes bland.  We will not know unless we sample the dish.

I Take It Personally

Dear Teenagers:

If you have ever wondered why a teacher gets angry when you have a lame excuse for being in the hall, or why a teacher raises her voice when you try to justify being late to class, or why a teacher stops talking altogether after the seven hundredth time you say “I don’t wanna do the vocabulary,” I am going to give you the answer.

It is because we spend countless hours planning lessons we hope will be engaging, challenging, and relevant.  It is because we spend countless hours aching over students who do not achieve or understand.  It is because we sacrifice time and sleep and energy because we want YOU to succeed.  

It is because I take it personally when I tax my physical and sometimes mental health to give you the priceless gift of education the best way I know how and you skip class, yelling as you roam the halls and distracting the kids who do care.  It is because I take it personally when I invest time and money to learn new ways to engage you and you mock it or ignore it.  

It is because I take my job personally.  Because it means something to me to help students see the world beyond the city limits in which they live.  It means something to me to see a student get it, the a-ha moment, after struggling for days or sometimes years.  

You mean something to me.  

And when you swear at me, or ignore me, or roll your eyes, or put your head down, I take it personally.

Sincerely,

Teachers Everywhere

Dawn

I have been sad for over a year.  Not curl-in-a-fetal-position sad, at least not on a regular basis, but sad nonetheless.  I've spent many days and nights laying on the couch watching TV shows I've seen hundreds of times before or sitting on my back porch playing mindless games on an iPad.  I stopped working out.

This past summer, I spent the majority of my time watching past episodes of a TV show that happened to be in reruns.  I declined offers to go out and about from most people.  The four gazillion ideas I had from Pinterest to landscape my yard or organize my house or craft away didn't get done.  The plan to properly leash-train my pup fell by the wayside.

Worst of all, I stopped praying for myself.  I prayed quite often for others, but I stopped talking to Him about me, about my weaknesses, about my thanks, about my hopes.  I felt, for a very long time, that I was failing at life.

About a month ago, I went to the doctor for a check-up.  I didn't have anything in mind other than it had been quite a while since I'd been and I thought I was due.  I mentioned feeling super cranky with hormones, so the doc prescribed Prozac.  Just to be sure, she drew blood to run some tests.  A few days later, lo and behold, it turns out my thyroid has begun to fizzle out.

So I went to my GP for more blood tests, an ultrasound of my thyroid, and a confirmation of hypothyroidism.  Want to guess what the symptoms are?  Depression.  Lethargy.  Weight gain.  Fatigue.

I wish I could express what a relief it was to learn this.  I wish I could explain how quickly my eyes filled with tears with the knowledge that I wasn't going completely bananas.  I mean, let's face it, I'm kinda nutty on my own but it's nice to know that's just a fun personality quirk and not a condition that leads to the men with the white jackets ringing my doorbell.

I have been taking thyroid hormone for about a month, and they're still regulating the dosage, but good golly, what a difference!  I feel like I am a completely different person!  It's not just the energy difference; with teaching and coaching, I'm still pretty wiped.  It's the difference in my thoughts.  I am not focusing on the negative.  I am not sad anymore.  I no longer feel worthless.  Best of all, I am praying again.

I'm not one to talk about my feelings a whole bunch.  I might mention something in passing, but I rarely reach out for fear of burdening someone else.  I remember talking about this particular feeling a handful of times.  I am thankful for one friend who listened and encouraged rather than some others who dismissed it as nonsensical.  I didn't even want to write about it because it feels like I'm just whining, but I have been thinking a lot about how much my life has changed in the past two or three years, about how much of that change has been internal as well as external.

I think it is very easy to look at those around us and imagine them to be happier than we are, more successful, skinnier, prettier, whatever-ier, and lose sight of the fact that they've got a lot going on inside as well.  I think it is easy to forget that everyone struggles and not everyone wears it on their sleeves.  I think it is important to remember that a little compassion, a little empathy, can make someone's struggle a bit more bearable, if even for a moment.

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. ~ Proverbs 17:17

Closed for Renovation

I spend a lot of time in my head.  That sounds fairly obvious; I mean, who isn’t in their own heads?  (I will pause here so you can fill in the blank for that question - I’m sure everyone can think of one person who just doesn’t seem like s/he EVER spends time in thought.)  I am constantly thinking, analyzing, pondering, wondering... It doesn’t matter if I am with others, either; though, engaging with other people does manage to turn down the volume on the inner monologue that sometimes screams at me late at night.  I just cannot seem to get out of my head.

There are times when my thoughts are very focused, like when I am generating lists of things that need to be done for a particular lesson, in order to pack for vacation, or the preparation for a social gathering.  When I have something on which to focus the raw energy of my thoughts, it’s downright scary what I can accomplish in a short amount of time.  For example, in preparing for my recent vacation, I procrastinated getting started despite the ticker tape of things I knew I needed to do.  Lo and behold, two days before I was to leave, I wrote the list and got my butt in gear.  In two days, I managed to cook for the wonderful people who volunteered to pup-sit, cook for the trip, do laundry, clean the house, mow the yard, and pack my clothes and car.  Not a ton of stuff, but considering I still had to run practice, managed to play tennis, and have lunch with some pretty awesome ladies during that 48-hour time period, I am relatively proud that I got everything done.

Now, when there is no focus for my thoughts, well, I imagine if someone were to be able to hear my inner monologue, s/he might believe me to be the poster child for Ritalin.  Laying down to sleep, working in the yard, driving longer than ten minutes, sitting on the beach watching the sun rise... the thoughts are like pinballs, traveling in one direction only to bounce wildly in a completely different and often unanticipated direction.  This morning, for instance, as I sat and watched the sun rise, my brain covered the following gamut: what I need to do to get fit, what I need to plan for an upcoming conference, how to get my mom and aunts to start talking like rational human beings, how to let go of some old resentments, what I need to do to get ready for school, what I need to do to prepare for my season, what God’s plan is for me, how much I miss playing volleyball, how much I hope my nieces will experience all the good in this world, if I’m ever going to meet someone, how annoying the sand fleas were that nipped at my ankles, and what I wanted to read next.  Two hours, my inner monologue at mach-5.  The nap I took after that was delightful.

Sometimes, I wish I had a mute button.  (Go ahead, say it.  Some of you wish that, too.)  I wish there were a way to mute the internal narrative, or at least a way to turn the volume way down.  It’s not so much that I mind reflection or introspection or rumination.  I think it is important to be able to do those things honestly in order to grow.  The problem with spending so much time in my head is two-fold:  1.  I’m sick of myself.  You know how it gets when you go on vacation with someone, and it rains so you are stuck in the hotel or condo together for days at a time?  It gets so annoying that even the way they breathe makes you want to stab a pen in both eyes... yeah, that’s how I feel about my brain right now.  And 2.  The constant analysis is creating a ridiculous amount of negative self-talk.  The ever-lasting, ipod shuffle-and-loop playlist of my brain seems only to focus on my flaws and failures.  This delightful by-product, in turn, increases #1 which then exacerbates the negativity.  To be cliche, it is a vicious cycle.

I think most people would advise me to simply find a focus to keep that energy harnessed.  If I were talking to someone else who expressed the same things, I would tell her or him to do just that.  Why in the world, then, is it so unbelievably difficult to do that?  Reading helps, but I may spend my retirement fund on books if that is going to be my only escape.  Pinterest can also be a labyrinthine distraction, as can be the mind-numbing apps on the iPad, but somehow I think there is more to living than these things.

Perhaps this is my eviction notice to myself.  Or, maybe not an eviction, but a notice of renovation.  It’s time to get out of my head.  Or, perhaps not get out, but let in the sunlight and fresh air that surrounds me because I gotta tell you, the air is getting stale and oppressive, and the ambience is dreary.  If anyone can recommend some good cleaning techniques, let me know.

Friends

I follow an advice columnist, Carolyn Hax, on Facebook.  She is not the “dear Abby” kind of columnist but rather one who is honest, sometimes gentle and sometimes sarcastic, and will gently redirect someone in pain as often as she’ll call someone out who has his/her head up a butt.  In short, I’m a fan.  She has a live discussion every Friday and sometimes will develop question threads into a stand-alone column.  Today, her column was just that and its subject was “How to end, or mend, a friendship.” (I suggest reading the comments section - her followers are hysterical!)

I have been on both sides of this equation, and it is fascinating to me how differently the equation plays out for all of us.  I have had friends with whom our common bond ceased to be common, and there seemed to be a natural fade.   I had one friend who crossed a line of hurt that just changed the way I saw her.  I admit to not handling it well, ignoring calls and texts.  When she finally asked about it, I did explain it, and she just erupted with an “I-can’t-believe-you’re-still-upset-about-that.”  I have also had a friend who stopped talking to me rather abruptly.  While I think about the other friendships that have passed from my life from time to time, this last one is the most painful, most likely because it is the most recent and it was a 20 year friendship that ended.

I have talked about this with a friend (who, bless her heart, is still very present in the weirdness that is my life) and she is probably reading this and banging her head off the keyboard.  She doesn’t understand why I won’t contact my former friend, why I won’t ask what happened.  She doesn’t understand my (il)logical thinking of “if 20 years of friendship isn’t worth a conversation, then why should I try to force it?”  Yeah, yeah.  I know what you’re thinking: I should swap “(il)logical” for stubborn.  I think this is a natural reaction to hurt, to try to block it by being flippant.  The truth is, though, that it does hurt.

I am not a fan of pain.  I imagine most people aren’t.  I think it’s natural to try to avoid it.  However, at some point, a person has to face it, feel it, and figure out what to do with it.  This is the part that I am a fan of: pain brings growth.  It can be for the better or for the worse, but hurting presents an opportunity to grow.  I’m not quite certain, yet, what kind of growth this particular hurt will bring.  Perhaps it will be to remind me to cherish the friends I have present.  Perhaps it will be to bring me closer to God.  Perhaps it will be to make me a better friend to others.

I am grateful for the friendships I have and have had in my life.  Some friends have taught me an appreciation for music, some taught me how to be selfless.  Some friends have taught me an appreciation for the healing laughter can bring, others taught me the strength to be found in humility.  Some have challenged me to be a better teacher, some have challenged to be closer in my walk with God.  All of them have contributed to who I am.

Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. (Proverbs 27:17)