Spiritual oppression

On Saturday I took my friend out to lunch for her birthday. We spent a good bit of the hour drive in prayer — among other things she prayed against my chronically recurring sense of being overlooked, marginal, left out. She clearly considered it one of Satan’s favorite tricks for me.

Later, I insulted my friend.

I then spent the next two days loathing myself for the things I say, trying to accept the already offered forgiveness of my friend as well as that promised by God, but not really believing in either.

Sunday morning — I woke up from a dream about spiritual oppression. I don’t even remember what happened in the dream or where I was, but that phrase was stamped on the dream in bold letters.

That night, a phone call from my friend helped settle me somewhat in the security of her forgiveness.

Yesterday, at a different friend’s house for a playdate, along with yet another friend, my child spent most of the morning all by herself. The other two kids were inseparable, giggly and running around and even talking to each other. I’m pretty sure I even remember mine going into the room where they were, and they immediately left. Meanwhile, I sat listening as my two friends talked — they had a lot to talk about, and I didn’t have any two cents to add.

I left feeling vaguely but sharply heartbroken — my little girl already the outcast I’ve always been, the one who walks into a room and sends the others fleeing.

Last night I wrote this in my journal:

Either A) I’m fine and within the range of acceptability — there will be things people don’t like about me but they can still love me anyway, and in a real and true way, and, the corollary, it’s okay for me to act like I think I’m normal and acceptable and lovable, and expect to be loved and appreciated and welcome for the most part.

Or B) I really AM one of the Undesirables, and many people really don’t care for me although they can politely tolerate me and tell me all the right self-esteemy things even though we all know those things aren’t really applicable to the Undesirables, and, the corollary, I had better acknowledge my place with due shame and stay out of the important people’s way, and acting like a normal person will only strain the tolerance and politeness limits of others and make them scorn me more deeply. And asking for reassurance? Expressing my insecurity? Definite faux-pas — that’ll force them to be more polite than they want to be, make me even more a burden than I already am.

And do I actually have any incontrovertible evidence for either position? Not really — what evidence there is is subject to interpretation based on presuppositions.

I need, desperately right now, to have my presuppositions corrected. A sane corner voice tells me B) is a damned lie, and that when I categorize other people as Undesirables that is a projection of my own insecurity and not evidence that such a category really exists.

About evidence and presuppositions — to a normal, happily secure person, the playdate description would present no problems. So one kid is somewhat solitary and the others play together more often. So two mamas had a conversation and the third just didn’t have anything to add. But start with a presupposition that I am an Undesirable and my kid is therefore doomed to be one, too, and the picture looks sinister.

———

Anyway, most of the time I adopt the idea that I really am within the realm of normal acceptable humanity and that people might actually like me sometimes. Today, for example, I’ve mostly been feeling fine.

When this other idea revisits, though, it’s brutal! And it always comes back, sooner or later, and it is really hard to challenge the presuppositions, because they circularly make the evidence look awfully persuasive of the presuppositions’ truth. Arguing in the other direction just doesn’t seem anywhere nearly so likely. And there’s no evidence that can change presuppositions, anyway — that change has to come from somewhere, something, Someone else.

And the consequences of being wrong about A), of thinking A) when B) is really true, seem devastatingly vulnerable and shameful. One must NOT be mistaken in assuming the truth of A).

———

I used my DBT skills pretty well, I think. I observed and named my feelings. I explored my thoughts about them, and challenged them as well as I could. I reminded myself that hormonal changes make my social paranoia worse once or twice a month. I reminded myself that night time is when I am most vulnerable to negative thoughts. I reminded myself that even if the entire human race DOES hate me, God delights in me, and that really is more than enough. I allowed myself to cry, and didn’t get too alarmed by my crying and intensity of feeling — didn’t get sucked into the future catastrophizing of “This is only going to get worse, this is a ball rolling down a steep hill, here comes the pit, and if I tell anyone I’ll just ruin everything AGAIN” — I let myself cry and write and pray, and then I put myself to bed and rested. (After doing my entire BSF lesson for the week, in one sitting.)

———

This whole episode reminds me so much of “The Rules”:

In Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott tells about the “five rules of the world as arrived at by this Catholic priest named Tom Weston.”

* The first rule, he says, is that you must not have anything wrong with you or anything different.
* The second one is that if you do have something wrong with you, you must get over it as soon as possible.
* The third rule is that if you can’t get over it, you must pretend that you have.
* The fourth rule is that if you can’t even pretend that you have, you shouldn’t show up. You should stay home, because it’s hard for everyone else to have you around.
* And the fifth rule is that if you are going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to feel ashamed.

Then she says that she and her therapist “decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.”

Middle

How often we think in extremes, forgetting the middle, or overreaching it in our efforts to avoid one extreme or the other.

1) One friend wrote about whether she would always be waiting for someone to hurt her, or whether she could trust that she only has good people around her. I understand that — I have issues with trust, and with expecting hurt, and with interpreting everything as personally and negatively as possible, and being paranoid.

I thought, though, what about the middle? Remembering one of my favorite quotations, “To have no illusions, and yet to love,” from Howards End. Or Sara Groves’ song, “Even though your heart is raw, love is still a worthy cause.” I suspect it’s possible to know that everyone will hurt us, intentionally or otherwise, at least once, and that nevertheless it won’t necessarily destroy us, or destroy the relationship, and that pursuing real, intimate, trusting relationship can still be worthwhile.

One of her other commenters was even better — talked about how if we trust ourselves, our own strength, that we can survive and get through so many things, that can help us have better, more stable, more trusting relationships that can weather more storms.

2) In another recent conversation, some friends and I were discussing marriage (and other relationships) and issues of service, respect, giving, needs, communication, and so on.

Some folks emphasize the need to look at our own flaws and failings, to work on our own attitudes and behavior, to treat our spouse or friend as if they were consistently and completely wonderful and worthy.

I tend to emphasize the need to communicate — spouses and friends can’t read minds, and won’t know we feel hurt, or have unmet needs, or what our desires and complaints are, unless we tell them. It’s okay to feel hurt. It’s okay to say so. It’s okay to want something different, and ask for it.

I feel like I’m occupying a middle — I’m not advocating ignoring or denying the spouse’s or friend’s needs, desires, complaints, etc, or fighting for one’s own wants at any cost. I’m not advocating arrogance or demandingness or complete selfishness.

I just think sometimes the first emphasis can be unhealthy for those of us who are tempted to think we aren’t worth enough to express ourselves or act to pursue our own interests — that it’s wrong to even have our own desires, much less pursue them. That the only thing that’s proper in marriage is service. That anything wrong or unsatisfying or disappointing or hurtful is either our own fault or something we’re not allowed to think or talk about.

Yet I understand the emphasis, too — and the need for it. I know that it’s my own fear of the extreme that makes me wary of it. I need to remember that it’s possible to do that emphasis AND my emphasis. I suppose we tend to say and urge and emphasize what we most need to hear ourselves.

———

Both topics make me think about DBT’s interpersonal effectiveness module. Technical name, corny material, but there’s wisdom in it. How to balance self-respect, one’s own desires, and the maintenance of the relationship. How to communicate effectively. It’s realistic and practical, but without dismissing real feelings and desires and fears.

———

Interesting post about humility — especially from the perspective of us ex-doormats.

Emotions and interpretations

I’ve been reading Joe’s blog, the one he and his wife kept while he was going through cancer treatments, up until he died several weeks ago. I just started at the beginning and am slowly making my way through. In his near-daily reflections there’s a lot that I remember hearing in therapy, and it’s good to be reminded.

One post I read today tells a story from Joe’s past when he was feeling burnt out as a therapist and went to complain to a friend. The friend told him he needed to remember who he is in Christ, and assured him of his confidence that the Lord would help him.

My mind has been chewing on the story today, in the background as I play with Amy, make the bed, do the dishes, contemplate how sleepy I am, wonder why I keep getting fraudulent calls purportedly from American Express.

One of the things I learned from Joe is that emotions themselves have no moral value. Whatever you feel, it’s valid — it’s true — it’s real — that is, the feeling is valid, true, and real.

And so, if you’re feeling burnt out, frazzled, in the pit, surrounded by rotten turnips, you can acknowledge those feelings and experience them in their full reality.

At first glance, Joe’s story seems to be contradicting that — you might be tempted to think his friend was telling him to buck up and deal, stop feeling sorry for himself, stop complaining — telling him he was wrong to feel the way he was feeling.

But that’s not quite it. The correction isn’t directed at Joe’s feelings, but at the way he was interpreting them and thus the way he was interpreting reality.

And that totally meshes with what I learned through DBT, particularly the prompting event worksheet. That worksheet has you name your emotion(s), describe your physical and mental state during the emotion(s), list the interpretations you apply to the emotion(s), and then challenge those interpretations as needed.

Most of us resent being told to stop feeling a certain way. My hunch is that most people who give such advice might be confusing feelings with their interpretations.

Another thing. Part of my response to this post of Joe’s was / is to be annoyed with God, and a little dismayed. Isn’t there ever a time when I’m allowed to complain, allowed to acknowledge that not everything bad in my life is my own fault? WITHOUT having to also acknowledge my participation in the bad, my need of repentance, my waywardness? And I have to remember that it isn’t that God is out to make me grovel, to keep me down, to take all possible joy away from me — and that it is exactly his goodness and mercy that allow me to see my sin without despair and excessive grief. Humph. Sort of.

Reactions

1. Remembering Ithaca.

I harbor a lot of bitterness. Sometimes I think it’s gone or asleep, but then something reminds me, and there it is again. Most recently, I was looking at some things online about our former town, and it reminded me of reasons I was glad to leave there.

There are things I miss: our church, my Celtic trio, a few friends, full recycling programs and a dump you can take things to, a healthy freecycle group, interesting food, concern for the local and the environmentally responsible, the farmers market…

But there are certainly things that still leave a sour taste in my mouth. The other church, although that bitterness is pretty low key now. The music scene that I felt mainly excluded by and yet also didn’t really want to conform to. The super annoying assumption that everyone wants to hate and make fun of Republicans and conservatism. Some other things, too.

2. Positive thinking

Doug has posted a list of possible core beliefs — the kinds of underlying beliefs we have about ourselves and our place in the world and our current situations. He talks about how once we know what our core beliefs are, we can challenge them and work to correct them into more positive ones.

I’m not against this idea. In fact, through therapy and DBT group and other things, I’ve learned a lot about identifying and challenging faulty beliefs about myself and my world. I’ve particularly benefited from those Prompting Event worksheets, some of which I’ve posted here.

On the other hand, just because a belief is negative and painful doesn’t mean it’s false. One of the good things Freud contributed is the distinction between the Pleasure Principle (avoid pain at all costs, including the loss of reality) and the Reality Principle (stay engaged with reality, even when it is painful).

So when I realize that I hold a negative belief about myself or my world, I can’t just automatically rewrite it in the positive and affirm the new version. I must be persuaded that the negative version is actually incorrect, and the positive one actually correct, before I can sincerely try to correct my thinking.

I think about things like how people talk about how everyone’s life is worth living, and how everyone is valuable and lovable, but yet people also talk about idiots and jerks and the awkward and ugly and unlovely — could you really look that person you despise in the eye and tell them you think they are a wonderful person and shouldn’t kill themselves, and that if they would just be themselves they would find friendship and true love and a worthy vocation?

What if I really AM that person?

3. We (usually Mark) pray for Amy when we put her down for bed. Lately, she’s been adding her own bit at the end, completely unsolicited. Mark usually thanks God for a few things, and then Amy will say something like “thank you for the bowed psaltery” or “thank you for the medicine.” It’s the sweetest and most lovely thing in the universe, even if she has no idea yet who she is thanking. And it’s a little reassuring, since sometimes I wonder if we are doing enough to introduce God to her.

4. I made some towel bibs for a friend today. I made a play curtain to hang in Amy’s doorway. I’ve made Boppy slipcovers and ring slings (both from patterns found elsewhere, and therefore probably only for personal use). I’ve made baby shoes (my adapted version of a pattern elsewhere — not sure if it’s sufficiently different to be salable). And dolls and doll clothes. I think about Etsy, and wonder if I could / should try making some things to sell there. Then I browse over there and everything is so wonderfully made and out of all organic materials and priced lower than I could price it, and I think it wouldn’t work for me. Any opinions?

5. I voted Libertarian. I liked Obama for his greater alleged concern for the environment and his energy policy. I don’t like the Libertarian or McCain’s energy / environmental policy. I feared Obama for his health care ideas — McCain, too — I worry about any kind of national plan trying to cut costs by limiting availability of services — especially for mental health concerns. I also disapprove of Obama’s record on abortion. I’m not at all interested in legalizing marijuana, but I can almost see a case for it (as well as other things) being more properly a state’s issue and not a national one. I like the Libertarian ideas of smaller government and protection of civil liberties.

It certainly felt odd to vote a third party. It was maddening to not find all of the things I care about lined up neatly in one candidate’s platform. But I felt better going with Barr than I would have felt with either Obama or McCain.

Now it’s done, Obama’s it, and it will certainly be interesting to see what happens next.

Practicing

This weekend was fall break — Mark was off from school on Thursday and Friday, so it was a long weekend together.

Last night I had a small panic attack.

As seems usual, the fear was unspecific — a sense of doom, of hopelessness, confusion, uncertainty, and just plain fear.

It was an opportunity to practice some skills.

I noticed that the fear was unspecific, and told myself that’s a sign that the fear is not worth being alarmed by, but just something to experience and let pass.

I breathed — worked on calming the physiological symptoms of anxiety instead of letting them escalate the fear in my mind.

I considered the suspicion that I must be missing something, that the fear must have something to tell me, that if only I could figure it out, I’d learn something important, and if I don’t figure it out, something terrible will happen. Or that maybe I need something and that something will turn out to be unavailable for some reason or other. I told myself that God is not about confusion, and if there is something I need to know, he will tell me more clearly than by vague unease. It’s not like I’m consciously ignoring anything or closing myself off to anything. I’m willing to listen — as far as I know, anyway. I also told myself that if there is something I need, there will also be a way to get it. Certainly I don’t need to get caught up in worrying about it being unavailable until it’s proven so.

A little while later I woke up, and after a few minutes, I suddenly remembered how afraid I’d been, and I smiled.

Today the meaninglessnesses and depression and anxiety have murmured here and there, and I am doing my best to trust they will pass and stay engaged with present reality.

I am also trying to not let my mood dictate my behavior. This is a relatively new idea for me (from DBT) — that there’s a big difference between pretending to be what you’re not, and acting one way despite feeling another. It’s actually possible to have a feeling, acknowledge it, fully experience it, and still act differently — to take a shower, get dressed, prepare and eat food despite being depressed and unmotivated and wanting to stay in bed, for example. Such action doesn’t have to mean denying or trying to transcend the feelings — it just means acting differently even in the midst of the feelings.

Abandonment

Prompting event for my emotion:

Two different nights as I was lying in bed waiting to fall asleep, a thought about my new therapist jolted me awake.

Emotion names:

Anxiety
Hopelessness
Pointlessness
Dismay
Fear

Interpretations (beliefs, assumptions):

I am beyond help. I cannot be helped by just anyone, but require hard to find and hard to pay for help. I am so difficult that I eventually repulse people who think they want to help me. I cause people to abandon me.

Physical sensations:

Awake, hot, jittery, restless

Body language:

Eyes open, tense

Urges:

To panic, to get up, to give up hope, to despair

Actions:

I continued to lie there, talked myself through my thoughts and feelings, prayed, used my “counting to 5000″ distraction / relaxation technique.

After effect:

I relaxed and fell asleep eventually, but still had some lingering wariness and concern.

Challenge to the interpretations:

This therapist seems more professional, capable, and respectful than the two guys I saw in NY. She also works in a reputable office, whereas those guys were on their own, working out of home offices. Even though she has interrupted me a little, made suggestions and asked questions that I have resisted, and failed to completely understand a difficult theological issue, she has also listened, and tried to understand. I think she wants to understand and is willing to work at it.

Also, we have only had two sessions, and the first of course was basically an interview. I can’t expect to be able to pick up where I left off with Joe. Perhaps I can expect her to be able to work with and help me even without having all that past history and information already. I can also expect to be able to tell her about my concerns and reactions and fears and resistances, and if she’s any good she can handle it.

I am aware that I have a fear of abandonment and a suspicion that I cause it, and that I do not need to believe everything this fear and suspicion tells me, especially at night when I’m trying to sleep.

Worst case scenario is that it doesn’t work out with her. If we really need to, I think we could make it possible for me to return to Joe. I have some concerns about that idea, too, but I could talk to him about them. I could also try someone else in the same office, or another office. I am not in the crisis I was in in NY, and so I have the time and reasonable stability to therapist-shop if need be.

Ultimately I trust God to deliver me — I am never beyond his help, and even if I must go through terrible things, he will bring me safely through them.

Scoffer

Prompting event for my emotion:

I decided to do a little exercise.

Emotion names:

Hopelessness
Pointlessness
Reluctance
Laziness
Anxiety
Loneliness
Sadness

Interpretations (beliefs, assumptions):

I am not worth taking care of. It is stupid to take care of my body, as if it would make any difference. It’s fighting a losing battle. It’s too much work. I’m tired of having to take all the responsibility for myself.

Physical sensations:

Tired.

Body language:

A little limp, a little sluggish, shifting eyes

Urges:

To stop exercising, to distract myself.

Actions:

I did a little anyway, then focused on playing with Amy.

After effect:

Fine.

Challenge to the interpretations:

It’s okay to exercise. It’s good for me, and I’m worth doing good things for. Something doesn’t have to be immediately and forever life-changingly productive to be worth doing. I don’t have to like it at the time I’m doing it in order for it to be beneficial or worth doing. I also don’t have to exercise if I don’t want to, but it’s good to ask myself why I don’t want to, or why I do want to. Somehow I have internalized a voice that says I’m not worth attention and effort, and another (or the same one) that says taking care of me is far too much work. I don’t have to believe these voices.

Revelations

1. No, I’m not talking about the Bible book. That’s Revelation, singular, by the way.

2. If the oven smokes whenever it’s over 400 degrees, so much so that the house must be opened up to dissipate it, and the smoke alarms go off, chances are it might need to be cleaned. Duh. We just keep forgetting to do it. Especially since you have to wait until the oven is cool enough to get in there and work on it. And we don’t own oven cleaner. And you don’t really notice the smoke at first — it’s not like it’s billowing clouds of blackness or anything. It creeps up on you. Or suddenly announces itself via the alarm.

But in my greeniness I thought I’d look around the trusty old Internet for homemade oven cleaner recipes. Lo and behold, the floor of my oven is now coated with a thick paste of salt, baking soda, and water; it will sit overnight, and tomorrow we shall see what we shall see.

Meanwhile I scoured the burner pans with steel wool. Not fun. If I’d had more paste, I would have coated those, too, and let them wait.

3. I can’t remember if I blogged about it at the time, but when I was going to DBT group during my PPD experience (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Post Partum Depression, FYI. Oh: For Your Information.), one evening in the shower it occurred to me that just because I feel X doesn’t mean I have to act it out.

In other words, I have had a tendency to think that people won’t know what I’m feeling, won’t get the message I need to tell them, won’t really listen to the words-only message, etc, unless I do a little drama for them. And yes, this tendency developed because people do tend to dismiss or ignore things if you can talk about them calmly and keep functioning. So annoying — scenes sometimes DO have to be made if it’s the only way to get what you need. Oh, and no, it’s not always a calculated, unfeeling drama — sometimes it feels driven, the only alternative left.

Anyway, there are times when I need to relinquish the need to send the message. Or the need to keep sending it for the thousandth time in the effort to make the person get the message and respond to it accordingly. Realize that the person the message is going to is NOT going to change or do the thing I want them to do. Realize, moreover, that my drama is unlikely to get the results I want, and I will have to either stick it out forever, which is a drain, or else crawl back from it with an even greater burden of mad shame and (especially) futility.

I have the choice to treat the person with respect and continue in relationship with them even though I feel their behavior or lack of behavior has hurt me in some deep way. Especially if I know that a) they didn’t intend me to feel that way and b) they’re just going to keep doing or not doing that behavior.

Futility in terms of not controlling someone else is not the same thing as capitulating, giving up on my needs and perspective, conforming myself to them since they won’t conform to me, etc.

If they won’t do what I need or want, I can see if I can do it myself, or, looking to God knowing that this world is not my home and this earthly life not designed merely for my entire self-fulfillment, do without.

This has a lot to do with willfulness, and learning to recognize what can’t be willed, and learning how to deal with such things. And with being right about everything almost all the time.

Analysis and pain

This post comes from some comment discussion with ama about therapy and analytical thinking; she says “I don’t care about understanding without change and relief.”

I think it was Freud who said the goal of therapy is to exchange morbid something or other for ordinary human misery.

Someone else said that it’s not so much that prayer changes things as that prayer changes oneself.

Understanding cannot stop, end, or control pain. Pain exists in this dark, fallen world, just as joy exists in this world that still bears the stamp of its loving creator.

Understanding does not change the past — what happened that hurt you or me did happen, and no amount of analysis can make it unhappen.

Understanding can change the way we experience pain.

DBT and other things has helped me in the process of learning to experience pain or any other feeling as something that is part of life, comes and goes, does not rule me, hurts but doesn’t destroy.

Understanding mainly helps me stop — again and again — fighting against reality. When I understand the sources of pain, the reasons I react the way I do to certain things, the desires that drive my will, and so on, I can remind myself that pain isn’t a flaw in my thinking — that I can’t change reality by will alone.

DBT and other things help me know when and how I can change some things, and when and how I must accept what cannot be changed. The only way radical acceptance is possible is when you realize the difference between accepting reality and condoning it.

In the past, every time I got depressed I would put just about my entire life on hold and concentrate all my energy on analyzing the depression — its roots, its reasons, its insights, its imperatives, etc.

Gradually I realized a few things. First of all, the same themes, ideas, and phrases would come up in my analyses, often in the same order. I don’t have to do the whole analysis all over again each time. Secondly, the depression always lifted eventually, and there was seldom any connection between the lift and analytical insight. Moods change, and are not directly tied to thinking alone (take that, CBT). Third, the depression would always come back; there was no sense in stopping life to deal with it, because dealing with it didn’t really have any effect on it, and because it seemed to be an integral part of my life.

I have nothing against analytical thinking. Hey — I’m a blogger and a journaler and I’ve been in therapy. Perhaps the problem is that I might still associate analyzing with willfulness, resisting reality, and trying to change things by understanding alone. Instead, most of the work of therapy must be about actually experiencing emotions and not only analyzing them. There is more to the person than mind alone.

Last DBT

Tonight was the last meeting of my DBT group. I’m sad that it’s over; I enjoyed it and thought it was useful, and I’ll miss the other attendees, especially the one I went out for ice cream with a while back.

I noticed that I haven’t cried at group for a while, and I’ve also headed home from group without intense anxiety about what might be happening when I get home.

There’s only one PPD intervention left; no more church volunteers, no more public health nurse, no more limited work hours for Mark, no more therapy, no more DBT. Just meds / psychiatry left. Lots-o-progress. A little sadness and loneliness, too.