Talk It Out

Even before my mother's passing, friends and family had made gentle, casual suggestions that I consider counseling.  After all, no matter how strong a person's faith is, losing three babies and a job in 13 months is a lot to handle.

The thing is, I genuinely thought I was doing all right.  I wasn't hiding my emotions.  I was open about them.  I didn't avoid talking about my losses or troubles.  I shared them with whoever wanted to hear about them.  I acknowledged them.  I grieved.  I cried a lot over my miscarriages.  As we continued to lose pregnancies, my fear increased exponentially.  I am aware of that.  To be honest with you, at this point, even with my faith and the support of my friends and family, I am petrified to even think about getting pregnant again. 

Everything has become complicated by the events of last week.  Ross and I finally got the chance to see a specialist, and, while he was a wonderful, thoughtful and concise doctor, I left the office with few answers - just another round of precautions, bloodwork orders, and guarded well-wishes.  I hadn't even gotten the chance to tell my mom about the visit, when three days later she was in the hospital herself.

Last night, Ross was very brave, and approached me about talking to a counselor.  I say that he was brave because I know that, like both my (stubborn!  stubborn!) parents, I don't often ask for help - and usually it's because I honestly don't know or think that I need it.  It isn't always a "pride" thing.  So, you can see, I thought I was doing all right.  I wasn't internalizing, wasn't playing the "Tupperware" game (that's when you keep stuffing your feelings inside and packing them tighter and tighter beneath the surface - and when you finally have no choice but to address them, they have turned into a snarled, tangled, moldy, rotten, festering, awful, incredibly-hard-to-fix mess).

But, I have a loving and patient husband who wants me to be well.  He hasn't accused me of being ill - mentally or otherwise.  The same way we go to the doctor to make sure our broken bones are healing properly, we can consider a counselor who can help assure that our hearts are on the mend.  I share this because I'm an open person, and because I want to play my part in dispelling the awful stigma about people with mental health challenges or concerns. 

When and if any of the kids in my youth group read this, I want them to be encouraged and understand that God didn't give any of us the ability to shoulder everything by ourselves forever.  He did, however, create us to work with each other and lift each other up.  There is a spiritual side and a natural side to everything we do - healing is no different.  To return to the example above, it would be foolish, after breaking a limb, to do absolutely nothing but pray over it when there are qualified doctors more than willing and able to help fix it.  On the other side of the coin, I think I have been relying entirely on my faith alone to get me through this horrible time in my life.  There are times when God does give us the grace to get through something - but I don't believe it's His intent for us simply to continue to function on auto-pilot, mindlessly praying and ignoring the help of those reaching out to us.  Such things certainly don't make us more spiritual or better Christians.  It could be argued, even, that those actions are dangerous becase they isolate us.  Frankly, I'm realizing that it hurts Him, too - because He gave us friends, fellowship, and family to support us not when things are going well, but during times like these...when grief is overwhelming, when life is painful and confusing, when we're afraid that we might simply break down and collapse altogether.

I doubt I will be posting any gritty details from my counseling experience - whether it will be one session or many, I don't yet know.  I will, however, share with you about my walk towards healing - however ugly that path might be at times. 

You're welcome to come along with me.