Have you tried, just, not being sad?!

    Yeah yeah. Six years since the last post and all. Let’s just acknowledge it and move on.

 

Heavy is about the only word I can think of to describe the way I feel about this post. It feels a little like pinning a scarlet letter upon myself, but instead of an ‘A’, it’s a big giant ‘defective’ sign on my forehead.

 

            And that’s the way most of us view depression, even those of us who live in it and battle with it. Looking at it from the outside, it almost always feels like, “You have this and that, and these people care, and those people have it worse, and how could you be sad?” The answer is, “I don’t know, but I am.”

 

            I’ve been trying to have a very clear picture of how I will present all of this, some roadmap to explaining what my purpose is and how I’m going to tug at heart strings to get the attention of those who read so that they will, hopefully, finally see their friends and family who suffer with depression in a new light, but the truth of it is, it’s so deeply interwoven into the story of my life and worldview that it’s hard to separate and I’m at the very earliest steps of a new journey into seeing my life, and my battles, with new clarity. 

 

            My friend Brad, who is a license counselor and hosts marriage retreats for parents of families with special needs (as well as a huge host of other services to his family, church, community, and even our nation and continent), often speaks of the stories we tell ourselves about our lives, both present and past, and how those stories influence the way we perceive the world as well as how we handle conflict. Let me tell you: I am a storyteller. I find such deep joy in watching the journey of emotions that can sweep across faces when they’re enthralled in a good story, and I’m not even that good at it. You can enjoy something without being good at it (which is a new lesson I’m beginning to learn in my life). I’ve come to realize that I enjoy telling stories so much, that even when telling stories about my own life and self, I’ve come to detach myself emotionally from them in order to ‘sell’ the experience better. When I tell a story about something I’m not emotionally invested in, but still need to capture my listener, I’ve learned to feign the emotions that would be associated with whatever part of the story we’re in. If it’s sad, I pause, I hesitate, I speak haltingly and softly. If it’s chaotic my voice will thunder and deepen with grander words and phrases. If it’s funny I laugh (even though I’ve told the story hundreds of times and no longer find it as amusing) because who doesn’t enjoy a hearty laugh? But in my quest to become a better storyteller, that disconnect has transitioned into the way I relate my own personal experiences in life and, I think I’m beginning to understand, has left me with some emotional immaturity that has stunted my growth as a man, husband, father, son, brother, friend, and primarily as a Christian. 

 

            When I was younger, I came to define, in my own way, what I called the four cords of intimacy. They were basically a way for me to perceive and hopefully understand the way relationships grew, both platonic and romantic. There are lots of other types of relationships out there, but I wanted to better understand the types of relationships where the expectations were mutual, and they existed with barely any other purpose other than the joy of one another’s company. In other words, non-transactional relationships. I distinguished the four cords of intimacy as: Physical – non-sexual and sexual touch and/or proximity; Emotional – the journey of sharing heartache, joy, peace, happiness, trauma together; Intellectual – learning more about one another, likes & dislikes, history, paradigms; and Spiritual – similar to emotional, but on a deeper level, incorporating the deepest system of beliefs into a shared journey of faith. I’ve spoken and counseled individuals and couples on building relationships intentionally in these four ways and the tension that comes into a relationship where there is an imbalance in the way these growths occur. I’ve worked towards keeping these ideas in the back of my mind as I sought to navigate the confusing set of paths and roads and obstacles that we call relationships. Because I made them such an essential part of my worldview in relationships, they also became, in some measure, the standards by which I measured my own personal growth. Physical – was I healthy? Putting into practice good steps to maintain a healthy lifestyle; my body is a temple, am I keeping it clean and in good repair? Emotional – do I manage my emotions well? Do I keep anger in check? Do I let joy have its day? When I’m sad does it rule my thoughts and decisions? Intellectual – am I keeping my mind sharp and growing in knowledge and wisdom? Do I set my mind on things above and seek to keep the thoughts that bring death at bay? Spiritual – Am I dedicating time, energy, thought and emotion to my journey of Faith? Am I growing to be more like Christ? Seeking to serve and love my neighbor as myself? 

 

            Now this all has a point I promise and hang with me just a little longer here. I remember when I was in high school and playing sports, there was a guy that was a year younger than me, we’ll call him Simon, who I wanted to despise. I wanted to despise him because no matter how hard I worked, no matter how many hours I put in training, lifting weights, watching film, no matter how many gallons of sweat and blood I poured out on the football field, Simon was always going to be better than me. Simon was just so naturally gifted in his athleticism that he, comparatively, never trained, barely even tried, and constantly outperformed us all, but namely me (because this is my story after all). I struggled deeply with anger towards him for several years and it wasn’t until later in my high school years when I was really investing in my journey of Faith when I was finally allowed to understand that we are all gifted differently, and that didn’t make Simon any less than me simply because he didn’t have to try as hard as I did on the football field. That also meant that I wasn’t any less than he was because I did have to try so hard. 

 

I have always tested well in an academic setting (saying a lot from a guy who attended one semester of college at a Jr college we all affectionately referred to as 13^th grade, I know). During my years of grade school, I genuinely believed that if all of my peers would simply work harder, that each of them was capable of achieving the same scores in school that I managed with barely any effort. When I finally made the parallel between Simon and myself on the football field, and my other peers and myself in the classroom, I began to have much greater understanding, appreciation, and compassion for my fellow man than I’d ever had before. No one was less than me for their gifting or lack thereof, and more importantly, I was no greater for any extra measure of effort that I put into any area of growth that I pursued. It was simply my journey at the time and it didn’t distinguish me as worthy of extra recognition. 

 

            As Hannah and I have journeyed through our lives together and encountered some of the stories you may or may not be aware of (some of which are shared in this blog) and as I grew in my journey of Faith to have deeper understandings of how God interacts with His people, I started to see and understand that even faith is given in measures to His people (Rom 12:3-8). The measures of faith even come in seasons for each individuals journey of Faith, so that we’re never given more than we can handle. More or less faith doesn’t mean more or less Spiritual, it doesn’t mean more or less loved, it doesn’t mean more or less valuable. It simply means that God apportions grace to us as we need, like mana in the desert. Each day has enough grace for itself and no other day. It’s like oxygen that we must breathe anew with every moment, and we must not rely on yesterday’s grace to carry us through today any more than we can rely on yesterday’s oxygen to give us life today. 

 

    So... now to the point: I’m beginning to realize, I think, that in the same way that I was granted a portion of mind (intellectual) that made academics an easy matter for me, and in the same way I was granted a portion of body (physical) that required extraordinary effort from me to perform and compete at a semi-competent level, and in the same way I was granted a portion of faith (spiritual) that has allowed me to stand through some extraordinary circumstances in life; I’m beginning to see that the portion of intuitiveness (emotional) that I was granted is, to put it bluntly, less than average. 

 

    I think that as I begin to delve into some of my past with counselors and friends and pastors who are helping me on this journey, that I will find some combination of experiences (things that happened to me) and choices (things I’ve done to myself) that have led me to be emotionally stunted in my growth and that has manifested itself in the form of sorrow, melancholia, depression, and fatalism. I’ve always been afraid to label myself as such for fear that it made me less. Even though I’d experienced the floods of revealed wisdom that came with acknowledging that easy academics didn’t make me more, difficult athleticism didn’t make me less, and steadfast faith didn’t set me above, somehow unmanageable emotions led me to believe that I was irredeemably broken and so I learned to stifle them and stuff them down deep where they couldn’t harm me. And I believed that I was mastering my emotions by pushing them away and trying to intellectualize everything that I felt. ------- But that was the thing. My inability to manage my emotions at a conscious, mature, and healthy level was driving me deeper down a road of sorrow that was affecting all other aspects of my life. I’ve been living an incomplete life, being made in the image of God and created to not only have, but to feel and experience a full range of human emotions but dedicating myself to the (seemingly) healthy pursuit of the other 3 aspects and neglecting the one. Not only has this been causing me harm and hinderance, but it has been an immense, unreasonable, and unfair burden on all others in my life who care for and love me. 

 

I’ve spoken for years of my depression as my thorn in the flesh. The thing I’ve begged God to take away, but He’s chosen to leave so that I may boast in my weakness and believe when He says to me, “My grace is sufficient for you.” And there very well may have been seasons where that has been true, but at some stage, it became not the thorn in my flesh, but my thorn in the flesh. I came to identify so deeply with depression and a melancholy outlook on life that it became as the One ring was for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. It was my precious, and I both hated and cherished it. It was my badge of honor and I ascribed far more spiritual and intellectual significance to it than was healthy; because by incorrectly labeling it within myself as a spiritual and intellectual matter I was neglecting the emotional part of my personal growth. I thought I could overcome my ineptitudes (which I didn’t actually acknowledge as such) in the emotional realm by working extra hard in the spiritual and intellectual realm. I even let the physical realm have its day in trying to overcome my shortcomings, both in high school through sports and weightlifting, and seasonally later in life, through weight loss, health binges, personal fitness goals, etc. That’s not to say that each of the other three realms (as I define them) are not actually essential in growing in the emotional realm, but none of them are a replacement for the hard work necessary to overcome what I’m now realizing is a major hole in my person and character. 

 

    So what now? Where do I go from here? Why share this? Part of my path during this season of exploration in pursuit of growth is being more open and vulnerable. I need to stop trying to maintain the façade to myself and others that I am a complete, whole, healthy person. I’m not. I need help if I would like to move and grow beyond the person who I’ve only seasonally been able to do little more than abhor. I’m submitting myself to the leadership of friends, family, pastors and counselors who can teach me the skills to grow in the areas I’m immature and childlike in. I’m talking regularly with trusted individuals who will ask me difficult questions and challenge me daily to hold me accountable. I’m delving into some of my deepest darkest secrets, literally stories that I’ve never told anyone until the past month, with professionals to help me unearth some deep wounds that I have long believed to be scars. I’m meeting with my pastor to help shine the light of the truth of the Gospel on some of my greatest misconceptions about myself, about Christ, and about His church. I’m writing a blog post to begin to own these shortcomings that I have, in hopes that in my weakness Christ can be strong. And now I’m starting to see, although it is but a smoldering ember on a candle wick battered by a hurricane gale, the small light of hope that I may (or may not) be destined to wrestle with sorrow, in some measure, for the whole of my days- I am not destined to be mastered by it. I do not have to be its slave, because my loyalty belongs to another master whos greatness knows no bounds. 

 

 

 

I am not an expert. In anything. Even the thing I know the most about, and that’s me. Please do not take any of this rambling self-reflection as authoritative on the process of emotional growth, depression, mental illness or anything else. There are a wealth of resources for those who are struggling and although I do hope that my journey can play some small part in another’s path to freedom, I do not intend for it to bear more weight than it ought. Its naught but an account of my trepidatious, halting journey of self-discovery and is not meant to be a guide for relationships or emotional growth. It’s merely the ramblings of a fool who hopes to one day be more. 

The Dreaded Vaccine Opinion Post

As with all hot-button issues, vaccines crop up now-and-again on the radar of the blogosphere and make the rounds on social media. I generally remain silent on such issues because I am aware that my particular beliefs on the subject are in the minority and my education on the matter is mostly experiential. I like to be as fairly informed about it as I can without obsessing, and I also like to see where my peers stand, so I will occasionally read an unfamiliar post on the subject in hopes to glean a few more pieces of information and see where the referrer stands. Most of the time I encounter the same arguments for, or against, and most often from an obviously biased (and sometimes self-aware) source. Today, however, in short, I faced an article that I felt warranted a response.

What I read today was a short set of cited statistics and studies supporting the effectiveness, safety, and broad application of all vaccines. What struck me about this article was not the lack of fact checking on both sides of the issue (such as the claim that the preservative Thimerosal was outlawed in 2001 and hasn't been used since, when in fact the ruling was that it was ordered to be replaced whenever a suitable replacement was found, and by my own personal experience was still in use as recently as 2010), nor was it the complete dismissal of an entire field of study based on the fraudulent findings of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, but instead, it was the systematic presentation of facts and figures in support of the authors point coupled with the expressed dismissal of the anecdotal instances of vaccine linked autism.

I'd like to show you something. This is a Joel -->

Joel is one of our 10 year old autistic twins. When you post an article or opinion completely dismissing the link between autism and vaccines, or any vaccine related injury for that matter, you are dismissing Joel. To me, Jeremy. To my wife, Hannah. To my father, Bryan. To my grandmother, Thelma. To his uncle, Jacob. Whether our story and experience is anecdotal and coincidental or not, it is a defining aspect of our life. In our house, autism and vaccine related injuries have two faces, and their names are Andrew and Joel.


This is an Andrew

The disconnect and anonymity afforded to us by social media and the internet has its advantages, but it also has had a tremendously negative effect on the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. You need look no further than the nearest fast food restaurant and watch a large portion of its patrons who never look up from the screen in front of them to interact with the people around them to see this in action. I have very little suspicion that those of you who post, or even share an article speaking on most subjects, particularly vaccines, do so with the intent of alienating and demonizing an entire group of people who suffer daily. And that's the truth of our reality. I love every part of my boys more than words could possibly express, but a day does not pass when we do not deal with the painful and brutal realities of life with autism. For every one Jenny McCarthy or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who take to the public eye with their stance there are literally thousands who suffer at home, in silence, and often alone. I know that because that is exactly what we did for years. Rejected by friends, family, the medical community, the school system, churches and oftentimes the public at large we shut our doors and mourned our very existence hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel that never seemed to arrive.

Demeaning, mocking, or even simply seeking to disprove our opinion is like trying to steal a part of our identity. And yes, you can fault us for investing too much of ourselves in a single instance, but when all evidences (in our situation at least) point towards it as a logical conclusion, can you really blame us? Maybe you can. Maybe the dismissal is easy for you. Maybe the dismissal is a little more difficult for you now (which I have no shame in saying was my intent). Either way, my story is not the central point of the entire vaccine debate.

The vaccine debate is not, at it's core, about public health, differing opinions, anecdotal instances, or hard statistics and studies. The vaccine debate is, as it's central issue, a philosophical, humanitarian, and liberty issue. Herd immunity seems to be finding it's way into these arguments more and more often, and I believe, will eventually become the lynchpin for the entire vaccine debate. At some point in the future, facing the current (at the time of this writing) 2 confirmed cases of the Ebola virus in the US, the resurgence of diseases like measles, and the persistent fear of biological warfare our society will reach a crossroads where we are forced to decide at what point the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. When do we ask, when do we demand, and when do we force an individual who is guilty of no crimes to subject to a procedure which could possibly do them harm. Before you jump all over me for assuming that there is a definitive link between vaccines and autism and dismissing the idea that vaccines are completely safe, I suggest you do a little bit of research on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, at least someone out there believes that it is possible to be injured from vaccines. Even if the statistical likelihood is so small that many would deem it negligible, does that make it an acceptable practice? Who decides what, and who, are acceptable risks and casualties for such a decision?

Human nature makes it easy for us to demand the safety and security of the many over the few, or even the individual when we find ourselves in the majority. And yet, in spite of the fact that by law an ambulance is forbidden from exceeding the speed limit and is bound by the same laws at traffic junctions as every other civilian vehicle, if you find yourself riding in the back end of one, you want to be moving as quickly as possible towards your destination. Classic stories posed some of these quandaries centuries ago, and Hollywood has recently rediscovered the entertainment value of the heroes dilemma, to save a single soul, or an entire city. When does majority rule supersede the God given inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?

These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves. At what point do I decide that your right to choose not to vaccinate yourself and/or your child is less important than my right to be protected from a disease? When does the risk become great enough that my choice is no longer valid? When is the expression/affirmation of my opinion on the matter important enough to alienate or demonize an entire sub-culture?

Parents of special needs children are already fearful that our society is well on it's way in a journey that ends with the euthanasia of the weak, broken, and or non-contributing members of society. Please think twice about the endgame of some of the articles you post or opinions you express. Numbers and percentages are meaningless when I hold my little boy, and I hope they are the same for you.

What I want to communicate with this is two fold: 1st, the faceless enemy that chooses not to vaccinate their child, for whatever reason, is not faceless. We are families who have wrestled with very difficult circumstances and issues and made the decisions we felt were best for our family. Please be mindful of this, not only when forming your opinions, but also when expressing them. 2nd, the main arguments that seem to be recurring in the majority of media I've encountered recently addressing this issue are a very slippery slope and they have consequences that reach far beyond the facts and figures surrounding a simple debate about vaccinations. We like to believe that humanity has evolved beyond the barbaric practices we read about in the history books like genocide, euthanasia, and child sacrifice, but I doubt that any of the civilizations who practiced such atrocities had done anything but delude themselves into justifying their practices in pursuit of progress.

You can cure autism, eh?

          I’m sure I should probably offer some sort of explanation as to why “a few days while we travel” has somehow turned into almost two months, but there is no reasonable explanation other than the fact that I needed a break.

          When last we spoke (a mostly one-sided conversation, as can often be the case with me) I shared some of my less admirable moments as a husband and father. As much as I am sure we’d all love to go back and relive my greatest failures and short-comings I find it more appropriate that we move on to a little more of the story that made up our journey together as a family. I do need to remind you that the next part of the story is where things start to get slightly more… interesting. We still live in the town where many of these stories occurred and still have occasional contact with some of the major players in them, so I encourage you to do your best to look past what you may deem bad behavior and decisions and realize that all parties involved were struggling to find answers. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about a messy life it’s that it affects everyone.

Playin' the guit-fiddle

As this post goes up we’re driving to St. Louis. I was asked pretty last minute to lead worship for a friend’s weekend discipleship event. Our family currently attends at least 3 different churches every week. I lead worship in different capacities at 2 of those churches. There are 3 or 4 other churches in our area that I serve at about once a month leading worship for their Sunday morning services. I was reflecting with my brother-in-law the other day about how I found myself in this position. I never wanted to be a worship leader. I never set out with that goal in mind.

More of my greatest failures...

There are instances in my life that are such grand, spectacular failures that I wish nothing more than to go back and relive them in order to change my actions and therefore the outcome. Those same failures are the ones that have forced and inspired such personal growth that I cannot help but recognize their crucial role in shaping me into the man I am today. My regret is only that in order for me to grow up those around me must suffer such pain and frustration at my hands. I long for the wisdom that comes from experience and failure without the consequences and I’m reminded of cake, keeping it and eating it too….