It's Hard Being The Same Age As Old People

I know, I know . . .

The past two years have been unavoidably exhausting, physically and  emotionally. So much so that I have neglected this blog. The blog is mostly for me to "think out loud" but I know one or two of you are still looking in on it.

Christmas passed as usual, with me spending too much money on the kids and grandkids. I realized, as I toted up the numbers, that although I love to give gifts, I'm frustrated that I didn't get any. I hope  that doesn't sound too selfish, but really? Four kids, three grandkids and my own family, and nothing? 

Next year, I'm going to cut back. I honestly don't mind making gifts like hat and scarves, but spending more money on anything except yarn, yeah, I'm done with that. 

I love my kids and grandkids. I'm happy to buy things for them, but I don't have to feel guilty if I can't or won't spend excessively just because it's Christmas.

And now for something completely different

I've finally gotten approval for knee replacement surgery. It's happening in March and I know this sounds terrible, but I'm absolutely looking forward to having a couple of months recovery time not being at work.

By the time I'm back at work, I will only have about a year before I can retire for good, something I'm very much looking forward to. I'd retire yesterday if I thought I could get Social Security and Medicare. I hope the convicted felon in the White House doesn't fuck that up for me. There's no way I can work until I'm 67, my mental health won't allow it.

You see, my body is betraying me more quickly than I anticipated. Once the knee surgery is done, I'm going to ask the doctor to look at my hip. And the longer I work outside my home, the worse my mental and emotional health is affected. Let's not forget the issues I've had since my colon surgery in 2022, something that has been and always will be not even as fun as it sounds. Also, my eyes are giving out on me and I'm going deaf in my left ear. 

So being the same age as old people sucks in a lot of ways. I'll get new glasses before I come back to work after the knee surgery, but that will only help a bit. The rest of it is the degradation of growing old and I just need to accept it. 

I was asked by a doctor if I was going to do anything fun this year. My response was that I was going to have knee surgery and get to stay home for a couple of months. He was confused - he said that wasn't really fun. I told him I'd rather be home than out and about, and that once the knee heals I'll probably go to a Giants game with my daughters. He didn't get it.

Have I mentioned I want to retire? 

God is Good all the time, and He's even watching over this tired little old lady. The troubles of today are fleeting and I need to remind myself that if something isn't eternally relevant, I don't have to dwell on it. Jobs end, knee pain ends, glasses can be bought - my soul lives forever, and I'm confident in God's love for me. 

I'll be okay.

I am God's Creation. He doesn't do things badly.

 "I am a creation of God and the manifestation of His plan."

I got this quote from a website I discovered a few days ago. I can't remember which one LOL! but it absolutely resonated with me. 

I have always struggled with the dichotomy of my faith versus my feelings. I have never fitted in, either at church or outside of it. I didn't even really fit in my family, although a part of that is because our neuro-divergence is genetic and no one of us fit very well with the others.

But my faith in God is also what kept us together as a family. It wasn't easy to grow up around my mother, but she at least kept us going to church on Sundays and she tried her best, I'm sure, to navigate her own faith according to her understanding of that that looked like.

"God created Autism to offset the excessive number of boring people on earth"

I got this meme from Pinterest. I love the idea that we are all part of the Body of Christ. Sometimes, I think I'm the big toe, but really my neuro-diversity means I'm the little bit of the brain that smells colors and sees music.

My little sister (in-law) is a very linear thinker. So is my ex-husband. Ask either of them how they do math, it's all about straight lines and remembered rules. Ask me how I do math, and I'll tell you what color the number 2 is, and what patterns I see in the equations in front of me. I look at a problem and see the solution, but don't ask me how I got there. 

I'm not calling my sister or ex boring. I'm saying there's more to my neuro-diversity to be celebrated than most people might perceive. 

"I thought I was bad at life. It turns out I was bad at living a neuro-typical life"

Another Pinterest meme. I absolutely identify with this statement. Unfortunately, everyone else is busy living their normal lives around me and get frustrated with me for not being like them. Sometimes that hurts worse.

I've had people ask me if I've heard of Temple Grandin. I see posts everywhere about famous people who were/are neuro-divergent. I look at other's success despite or because of their neuro-divergence and I am discouraged by the fact that I'm not as successful in my life.

That's nonsense, I know that. I raised four successful children, I am gainfully employed, I am creative, passionate and gifted. But I still feel a lack because my giftedness has a short attention span and I'm unable to use my gifts to, for instance, stay financially stable or some days even clean my house.

My therapist gave me a book to read called "How to Keep House While Drowning". I don't get any affiliate money from this (because I can't figure out how to do that) but it's an incredibly insightful look at the issues involved in being neuro-divergent as an adult.

I'm not done reading it - busy with work, busy with, yes, cleaning house. I also need new reading glasses, and my prescription is an expensive one. But I'm looking forward to learning more about what she has to say, and learning more about myself.

I'm not sure what else I had in mind when I started this post. Some days are like that.

Ecclesiastes 3:11, “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (NLT).

Invisible

Neuro-divergency is often ignored by both the person who is neuro-divergent and/or the people around that person. I've spoken before about how different people in my life have treated me over the years and how separate I've always felt.

In the interests of (fairly) full disclosure, I had to take several months off from work because of stress-related issues, and discovered several things about myself.

One, I was re-diagnosed yet again, and this time it actually makes sense. The diagnosis is, of course, ADHD and Autism. I think I already knew that, but it's nice to have it validated by a diagnosis. One of the diagnosis criteria tests scored me as 199 out of 163. That's a big number

Of course, being almost 62, I have spent years creating strategies and habits in order to present normal to the world; however, not a lot of people are willing to believe I'm not like them. They believe I just need to pull out of myself and get it together. 

Nope.

Here's a blog post from an adult on the spectrum about the true meaning of "high-functioning". She got it spot-on.

https://autisticempath.com/dont-call-me-high-functioning/

This is partly why going back to church has been so hard for me to do. The expectations of the other sinners can become both obnoxious and frightening. Having to sit outside the sanctuary just to be able to concentrate on the sermon, well that looks anti-social. 

The Church, especially Evangelicals, expect everyone to participate and don't understand the one person out of a hundred who can't do crowds, is sensitive to loud noise and needs something to keep their hands busy in order to listen better. My mother drew pictures, I crochet.

My Christianity has always, and will continue to be, about service. It's just that the older I get, the less I want to get stuck in any ministry that will wear me out emotionally. Lately, that's basically everything.

Anyhow, back to self-discovery.

Two, I spent a lot of time in both group and individual therapy. It is there that I realized that I don't actually have to live up to everyone else's expectations. I have been a people-pleaser all my life, going all the way back to trying to get my mother to actually love me.

And there's the rub - my mother, from going through my own issues and memory lane, was probably neuro-divergent. I can see that she probably never had the opportunity to learn some of the tools I have, and had a difficult time "fitting in" the same way I do. 

However, this doesn't mean she shouldn't have tried a little harder. 

That sounds petty, but the fact is, I was still the birth-control pill she forgot one morning. I was still "nervous jervis". I was still like my crazy grandmother. My brother and I were still the extra kids she never should have had.

I tried so very hard not to treat my children the way I was treated. I was not a perfect mother, I had my moments, as I'm sure my children will tell you. But I made a very conscious effort to love my children unconditionally. And none of them were mistakes - any mistakes were my own.

Three, I am creative, passionate and loving. A neuro-divergent diagnosis does not negate these qualities; they are a large part of who I am as a whole person. I am also abrupt, bossy, highly sensitive and a small-picture person. That is also me.

I y'am what I y'am, and that's all that I y'am.

Four, my neuro-divergence isn't an excuse, but it's also not an apology. I'm done people-pleasing, especially at work, now that I'm back.

I have put a lot of myself into my job, and even though I don't react the same way to situations as someone else might, it doesn't mean I don't care about my work, care that it's done accurately and to the best of my ability. I care about our population, I care that we have the resources to serve that community.

But my job is not your job, and I'm done doing your job for you. I'm done being the office mom (except when it comes to wiping down the front counter and changing the date stamp - that's the OCD)

I'm done.

Five, my children still love me. My daughters especially have been my support for the past 5 months. And I hope my sons know how much I love them, will always love all of them until my dying day.

That's pretty much all. I'm still struggling to make ends meet after being on extended disability, which barely covered the bills for a couple of months. But God is faithful, even when I'm hiding out at home on a Sunday morning.

Here's a verse to ponder:

2 Timothy 2:13

If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who he is.

God will always love me and take care of me.

That's Just Mom

Mental illness is difficult to understand.
I understand that I am who I have always been. I understand that as I get older, my physical body changes and sometimes that affects my ability to deal with the mental illness. I understand that circumstances don't help.

Mental illness takes its toll.
In general, I am more highly sensitive to changes around me. It could be noise levels. It could be other peoples' reactions to me in any given situation. It could be an abrupt change in my schedule or even someone trying to surprise me. Sometimes it just happens and there's no warning. 

Not even the people who love me (and there are few enough of those) can bring me out of my own head as I struggle to deal with the overwhelming the feelings of guilt, resentment, anger, sadness, heartache and emotional pain that come when I feel as if nothing ever works right for me. I don't think it's their fault.

Mental illness is deceiving.
"You don't look sick." "That's just mom." "Why can't you just let it go?" "Drama queen." "You can learn how to deal with things." That last statement implies I have some control over the darkness. I don't.

Mental illness does not mean I'm stupid.
High-functioning. Genius. Explosion in a paint box. I've been called all these things. But intelligence and common sense don't seem to mesh well inside the bubble of my mental illness. I can't seem to pull the trigger that brings all the knowledge together with all the experience and shoots out a normal person. 

I've heard it described as being inside a glass tube where you can see the normality but you can't break through to touch it.

Mental illness is physically debilitating.
Not once in awhile. Not even once a week. It's every day. It's in the morning when I force myself to get ready for work, and then force myself to actually go, then force myself to do the work, then force myself to deal with the drive home and then force myself to eat and force myself to stay awake until it's time for bed. 

It's the weekend when I have nothing to do, no schedule to keep to that forces me to deal with the outside world. I do my laundry because I know I need clean underpants. I eat, sometimes. I take lots of naps. I go to church because that's where I need to be.

Mental illness sometimes keeps me from God.
I go to church because I know I need to be there, and I bring my grandchildren because that's when I get to spend time with them and they get to be in a place where they learn about a God who loves them. I know He loves me, too, it's just that even when I'm there, even when I know the Holy Spirit is poured out, even when the pastor preaches straight at me, I just can't seem to get past whatever it is that keeps me from experiencing what everyone else seems to get automatically. 

It's like I'm the only one who doesn't get it. It's like that for everything.

Mental illness keeps me alone.
I live inside my head and that scares the hell out of me, because no matter what I do, or say or think or feel, it'll never be good enough. Not for me, not for God, not for my kids, not for anyone. Inside or outside my head, there is always chaos. 

Even when I know the truth, know that there is an Almighty God who is love, and who loves me and made me who I am, the mental illness is a barrier, a sinkhole, a mire of self-recrimination that keeps me inside and doesn't let me go.

It is a darkness that is always there.

Mental illness is a legacy.
My mother is dying. She turned 90 this year but has been in and out of the hospital for a month, two brain surgeries and my sister has brought her home to die because there's nothing more to be done.

All I could do was go say goodbye to a woman who has never been happy. Unfortunately, I think I only saw a reflection of myself in 30 years time. We have always known that the mental illness is hereditary. 

I hope and pray that my children don't end up suffering through everything I have. I hope I did a better job as a mother, no matter the mistakes I made. I pray every day for my children who have rejected God. Personally, I can't not believe in Him. 

I have mourned my mother all my life. I don't know if I'll grieve when she's gone because she'll finally be free. 

Mental illness is what it is.
I started off by saying I accept that this is who I am. What I want my words to do is help other people get a sense of it. It probably won't work. It probably shouldn't matter as much as I think it does. The reality is that wherever I go, whatever I do, it is there and it is me. 

If you know me, you'll try to understand. If you love me, you'll try to be patient. If you need me, I can only give you as much as I can. It is what it is.

Falling Leaves

Falling leaves

She stares out the window, the glass protecting her from the ebb and flow of the wind as it knocks the leaves from the trees. It swirls them around, like her life, moved by an invisible force that isn't good or bad, it just is. 

Her mind isn't particularly on the leaves falling and floating; she is considering her life and the circumstances which have brought her to this point, and the tears that fall like the leaves are silent. 

She wishes things could be simple, like the leaves. They come, green and lovely in the spring, a promise of new life with a hint of summer in their scent. Then, at the appropriate time, they begin their change to the colors of autumn, yellows, reds and browns. Eventually the wind comes and they fall down, down, only to be taken in by the ground to nourish the very tree they came from so new leaves can grow again next spring.

It's all so uncomplicated, so orderly, so beautiful. She cannot say the same of her own life. Her childhood was filled with the knowledge of not being wanted or loved, that no matter what she did it would not be good enough. Her adult life consisted of trying to live the way she had been taught in Sunday School, only to fail time and again, never knowing why she wasn't allowed to be normal. Now as she grows older and finds out her brain has physically failed her, she realizes nothing will ever be normal.

She cannot see beyond this. This is her existence, the chaos. The past haunts her, the mistakes of a life attempted and failed, of a marriage full of conflict and children who succeed in spite of their upbringing, better than she did. It haunts her, the ghosts of people she has broken, worn them out by using them to try to be like them, only a few of them hanging on because of a love she will never fully understand or even feel.

She sits in church, knowing she needs to be there, knowing all the right words and all the right things. Yet when the pastor asks if there is anyone there who doesn't fully believe God loves them, she gasps silently, hangs her head and lets the tears fall. God is real, God is good, God is love but her marred mind will never allow her to accept that completely. 

The leaves fall and die; she cannot because that would be a pointless end to a seemingly pointless life and she is afraid of the eternal consequences if she takes matters into her own hands. Somewhere, somehow she knows God is watching. Is he a policeman, waiting to catch her out? Is he a judge, waiting to pass sentence? Is he a loving Father, something she has searched for her entire life and has yet to find? She does not know the true answers, only the words she has learned and repeated over and over. 

Is it enough for her to know these things? No, because it's never enough. It's never good enough. It just is and the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute struggle that not even the medications can help wear her down until all she can do is sit and stare out the window at the leaves falling. 

New Diagnosis, Same Old Life

The past two weeks have been nothing short of horrendous, and I have hesitated to describe here the things I've been going through simply because I'm still in shock. 

It's not that I'm incapable, it's that suddenly it's all gotten very scary for me.

I've been very up front about my mental illness, trying to sort through my life by writing about it here; somehow the new diagnosis has made all that too trite. Perhaps it's been that all along and I just didn't realize it.

I'm not going to name the new diagnosis, not yet. You can ask me and I'll tell you, but not here. 

So for those of you looking for another childhood memory, I'm sorry but for now I can't. I was trying to come up with something but I'm more overwhelmed than usual with this, and of course circumstances around me have conspired to keep me from thinking of anything else.

There are a couple of good things, and I try desperately to focus on them. I get to take my grandbabies to the pumpkin patch on Saturday afternoon and they're spending the night, too. There's still two games left for the Houston Astros to beat the Yankees and go to the World Series, because if it's a Yankee/Dodger series I won't have anyone to cheer for. I finally get to go see Blade Runner 2049 on Friday night.

I'm taking new medication for my new diagnosis, and I think it's starting to kick in, although that could just be (no pun intended) psychological. 

I'd just like to point out that no matter what the diagnosis is, I'm still me. The good, the bad, the ugly, the un-filtered. The child of God, the cherished woman, the explosion in the paint box. I think, though, I'm mostly pointing that out to myself.

My Life Got Too Noisy

Being Mentally Ill is not even as fun as it sounds.

"What?" you say. Yes, it's true. All these years of suspecting the worst and lo and behold, I find out just how much God loves me even if I am bipolar.

The OCD, the ADHD, the ups-and-downs of depression and lack of focus ... Believe it or not everyone, it doesn't mean I don't have enough faith in God. It just means He loves me in spite of all that and changing my heart doesn't necessarily mean changing me into a "normal" person.

The goal here, folks, is to remind you all of the difference between feeling down and being sad because of circumstances; and the all-encompassing, physically debilitating effects of despair, anger, absent-mindedness and an almost unerring tendency to say exactly what's on my mind at any given moment.

No filters.

If you try to tell me about experiencing God's love and healing, but you have a two-income family, a successful marriage and children who aren't tired of you, I will stand up and walk away.

Circumstances are always in flux. The idea that just believing in God to smooth the way whenever we get into trouble and everything will always be happy and joyful just because you claim salvation ... Well, that's a lie.

Real life hurts. 

Real life is when you don't have a place to live and go from one couch to another because you're mentally ill but your family doesn't actually believe it.

Real life is when you cannot hold down a job because it makes you physically ill to meet new people or be in a crowd.

Real life is when you can't go to church because you can't not tell them "how you're doing" when they ask.

Real life is being high-functioning and intelligent but mentally ill and no one wants to see the mentally ill part and place too-high expectations on you.

Real life is hiding from people who say they believe in God but don't believe in me.

Anyone getting the picture yet? I am angry. 

However, I'm not angry at God. I'm angry with myself a lot of the time because I believe the things people say about me: "Pull up your big girl knickers and get over it." It's not easy.

Bipolar syndrome used to be called "manic depression" and is now described as having "hypomania." 

WebMD states,

"During a hypomanic episode, elevated mood can manifest itself as either euphoria (feeling "high") or as irritability.

Symptoms during hypomanic episodes include:

• Flying suddenly from one idea to the next
• Having exaggerated self confidence
• Rapid, "pressured" (un-interruptable) and loud speech
• Increased energy, with hyperactivity and a decreased need for sleep"

If you have known me at all, you have seen me in action with all of these. My best friend used to tell me I was an explosion in a paint box. Yeah.

Read the rest of the article, people.

So let's get down to it. I cannot fully describe everything happening with the chemicals in my brain. I can only work with the doctors and take the medications and do the best I can.

Some days are better, some are not so good. All the things I want to do, like use common sense or keep my mouth shut - that's impossible sometimes. 

God's healing is in the medication. God's healing is in His Word. God's healing is in the unconditional love I receive from Him. God is faithful, even and especially when I can't focus on anything long enough remember that.

I may not have been the best of friends. I certainly wasn't the perfect mom or wife. I'm not even sure if I'm capable of any of that right now.

All I know is I can't give up. Despite not being able, at this point, to separate the emotions from the circumstances, I can't give up.

Every time I go into the doctor's office, the question is, "Are you feeling suicidal or thinking of harming yourself?" My answer is no. Suicide is a cop-out, and I have to believe I'm better than that.

It may take medication to be better than that, but I can't give up. I have plans. I have goals. I have a life to live. Just right now though, it's a little difficult to see that from where I'm sitting.

I am a sinner, saved by grace and a child of God through my very personal, very interesting relationship with Jesus Christ. 

Don't you dare tell me I don't have enough faith in God. 

Do remember that some people have it harder than others, mentally or otherwise. Think about what platitudes you're offering to people who deal with mental illness, especially if you're offering them from a pulpit.

Believe it or not, I still have a huge capacity for love, and there are very few people I have given up on forever. So don't give up on me.

And please, allow me to be who I am, even through all the struggles, because an explosion in a paint box is bright, colorful, interesting, beautiful and dynamic.