When Your Soul Unravels

Let me tell you a story.  Once upon a time I wanted to quit…everything.  I wanted to run away from my life. 

Defeated.

Overwhelmed.

Insecure.

Trapped.

That adequately sums up what I was feeling.  What a nice tidy little list. 

I was unraveling.

 

Regardless of how it started, when you enter a season of "unraveling" it is hard to make it stop.  It’s happening, it's real, and it doesn’t just go away after a good night’s sleep. Oh, how I wanted it to. Emotions jumped in the driver’s seat and stepped on the gas.  What was true and what I felt were at complete odds with each other.  

I entered a dark night of the soul.   Life kept moving no matter how much I wanted to find a stop button and I was desperate to find a way out.  Every day the heaviness hit me when I woke up.  Joy felt so far away.  I wanted to choose it but the lies and darkness pressed in on me.  Anxiety was so thick that it literally felt hard to breathe sometimes.

How did this happen?  How could I find myself in such a dark place when I have hope in Christ?  I thought I was so much more mature in my faith.  I thought I should be further down the road than this.   The “I should be” statements were so loud in my head.  I had a list of expectations for myself that was a mile long and I wasn’t living up to any of them. 

Spiritual dryness, stress, exhaustion, difficult relationships, lack of communication between Jeff and I, carrying more responsibility for others than was good or necessary, and unrealistic expectations of myself after bringing our third baby home in under four years finally ate away at my emotional margin.  One day a small statement seemed to break the dam.  This fragile dam had been keeping all of the stress, lies, and expectations inside the boundaries of my mind where I thought I could control them.  I thought maybe none of it was really affecting me as long as I could “keep it together.”  In reality, the dam wasn’t serving me well.  It wasn’t helping me work through any of it.  It didn't bring freedom.  It just kept everything trapped inside and held me captive.  As it turned out, the dam was weaker than I thought. 

So, what was the answer?  Memorize more verses?  Try to keep pushing through and risk growing bitter?  Take a vacation?  Just quit?  I wasn’t really sure, but I knew I couldn’t live like this.

I was desperate for God and for His Word to come alive in me.  His words were literally light in my darkness.  I yearned for Him in a different way than I ever had before.  When everything else in life, even good things, leave you feeling defeated where can you go?  I was so desperate I couldn’t even watch t.v.  Everything felt so trivial and empty.  I needed Him to speak life into my soul when the kids went to bed at night, or I didn’t know if I could face the next day.  He felt so far away but I sought Him with an intensity that I had not experienced in years. 

I reached out to some friends who spoke truth and prayed for me to hold onto what I KNEW was true even when I didn't feel it.  They stood with me and fought with me.  They sent me text messages with scripture, songs, and let me know how they were specifically praying.  They held my arms up in the battle.  This is the necessity and beauty of the body of Christ.  They were His hands and feet to me.

I also had a husband who was even more determined than I was to get through this together and find joy again.  He didn’t give up on me.  There was no “I didn’t sign up for this, so peace out.”  He stayed.  We felt distant and confused for a while.  We didn’t know how to walk this out together.   He took the brunt of it more than anyone else.  He let me say how I felt and didn’t get defensive.  He forgave me when I said hurtful things.   He showed me the grace and love of Jesus in a deeper way than I had ever known or embraced before.  He saw me at my worst and loved me still. 

He showed me the sort of faithfulness that made his words at the altar worth their weight.  He meant what he said that day. 

With the encouragement of a few friends we knew that we were in too deep to swim through all of this alone.  We needed some outside perspective.  So, one hot July day we walked into a counselor’s office.  To be honest (I mean, why stop now?), I felt scared and awkward about being there.  I hate that I felt that way.  Somehow I had adopted a double standard.  I wholeheartedly supported friends when they sought counseling.  I thought it was awesome, brave, and the healthy thing to do.  When it was my turn?  I thought it was because I was weak and not mature enough to handle my problems like a normal adult. 

Read: Prideful.

One of my best friends helped me fight back that lie with her famous phrase, “It hurts so good.”   She kept telling me that it was going to be hard, but so good in the end.  It’s the right thing…the hard thing…the healthy thing.  I wasn’t totally sure but I really had nothing to lose.  The other option was to suffer through it for who knows how long and hope for the best.

We walked into our counselor's office that day, sat down, and began to tell him why we were there.  I wanted to stay in that room until everything was better, but for some reason he had to see other people and go home at some point so we had to leave when our hour was up.  I had to learn patience in the process.  I’m a fixer by nature, so I like to get to the bottom of it and deal with it as quickly as possible. 

It took time to get to the place of real progress, but progress did come.  Freedom and joy made their way back into my life.  

Our counselor asked me questions that helped me identify why I felt so overwhelmed and defeated.  I finally realized that I was really the only one who had unrealistic expectations for myself. 

  

Here were some of my biggest realizations. 

1) The child rearing years are some of the most difficult years in life...but they are wonderful if you can appreciate them for what they are.  This is so hard to embrace in the middle of the crying, fighting, whining, sleeplessness of parenthood.  There are only so many hours in the day and so many years that I will have with my kids before they leave though.  There are some things that I prefer, like lots of peace and quiet and a clean house for instance, but have to lay these aside for a season.  I can have a clean and quiet home someday.  Chances are pretty good that I will miss the noise and the mess when that day comes.  For now, I have to let it go.  I don't have to become a slob but I have to let our kids be kids and prioritize relationship over tasks.  I have to crucify the thoughts that nag me about the dust on the end table, the dirty dishes, and the laundry piled up on my dresser.  This is intentional work for me because of how I'm wired.

2) Life is a process.  Laundry and dishes are just part of the process.   What has always bothered me most about those things is that they are NEVER DONE.  This is torturous  for a check list lover.  It was adding to my stress and defeat constantly.  This is the statement that I held on to from our counselor.  It doesn't need to be finished because we are always in the process of living.  The laundry will be finished when we are done living.  So, I started to look at it as part of the process of living.  Such a slight difference in the way I looked at it relieved the pressure.  I still don't like when I get behind and it's piled up in our room, but it doesn't have the power to make me feel defeated anymore. 

3) We can eat cereal for dinner and no one will die.  Jeff was okay with cereal for dinner some nights and the house being a mess when he got home.  I had a June Cleaver in yoga pants complex.  Since I'm home all day with the kids just doing nothing (wink wink) "I should be able to" make a decent meal every night for dinner.  Add to that my internal pressure/guilt over feeding my family all healthy things.  Organic.  Fair Trade.  Unprocessed.  Whole food.  TIGHT BUDGET.  TIME CONSUMING.  CAN'T DO IT.  I think you should do whatever you want to do with all of that.  Just obey what God asks of you.  I am going to do the best I can with the resources God gives us to steward.  We are going to eat our whole foods and we are going to eat corn dogs too.  That’s just where we are and it’s okay.  I’d rather have my sanity on a crazy day while I dip my corn dog in some ketchup.  I really like to cook, and while sometimes I would rather do that, there are too many little people that need me on some days.  

4) My kids are not a direct reflection of me.  I realized that when the kids were having a bad day and I could see it stressing Jeff out, I felt like it was my fault.  I had to stop.  Every person in this family is their own entity.  Everyone will have their own bad days and make their own choices and it is not always a direct reflection of how I am doing as a mom or wife.  I have my own bad days and make my own choices, and I am responsible for those as well.

5) Jesus is enough.  I cannot be every woman.  I have limitations.  I blow it sometimes frequently and have to ask my kids for forgiveness.  I wish I could accomplish more.  It seems like some people get more done in a day than I can in a week, but comparison doesn't help me one iota.  I can only be me and keep my eyes on Jesus.  And you know what?  I am aging like all humans do.  There are no exceptions to this process, only different rates of progression.  I cannot have my pre-baby 25 year old body back.  There is so much more to life.  I am loved beyond all of that by the God of the universe.  Jeff demonstrates that sort of love to me, but when and if he doesn't...I am wholly loved by an infinite, eternal, never failing, perfect God.  Jesus is enough in my weakness and He is sufficient for me.  He is sufficient for Jeff too.  

So, how do I feel about counseling now?  It was hands down one of the best things I ever did for myself and we ever did for our marriage.  I could have gone to those sessions alone and it would have been good for me, but the value in processing things together made every penny twice as worth it.  Sometimes we need to hear someone else ask our spouse a question and hear their heart.  It’s good to have someone ask the questions that we may be afraid to ask or just haven’t thought to ask. He gave us some great ideas on how to invest in our marriage (another post perhaps).  He helped me think through where some of my lies were coming from.  He encouraged our love for Jesus. 

I am so so glad we did the hard thing and walked through that door…and kept coming back.  We are better and healthier for it.  We still go see him from time to time for a "check up."  He is like a mentor in our lives.

I’m grateful that there are people who are trained and passionate about helping us get to the truth, deal with it, and work toward being in a healthier place.  Some people are so good at this.  Are there some counselors that I wouldn’t go to?  Absolutely.  There are some counselors that have different values or just aren’t good at their profession.  It's worth doing some homework before you make an appointment.  It would also be ludicrous to write off a whole profession aimed at helping others because of some who we do not agree with.  We have a tendency to paint large groups of people with a broad stroke of the brush because…it’s just easier.  It’s not better. 

Maybe someone reading this is in a hard place and struggling with anxiety, depression, or just feeling overwhelmed in this season of life.  You don’t know how to overcome it no matter how many verses you can quote or how many times you tell yourself you shouldn’t feel this way.  It’s not going away.  I can’t encourage you enough to do the hard and healthy thing.  Get a recommendation from someone you trust.  Make that phone call.  Walk through that door.   

What do you have to lose?