Chapter 6: Haggling

After the almost-severed finger accident, there ensues an intense struggle on a few fronts.

*Haggling between Gregg and me:

Gregg doesn’t appreciate being told what he can or cannot do. We talk about what happened. In late October he reveals, “It wasn’t all Allure.” He had sent an email message to her that had the effect of starting up their attachment again in mid-August. That makes sense of the words I’d heard Allure say to Gregg of “you started it.” It seems she had backed off during the summer after I talked to her in May about flirting. But then Gregg said something to her about “following him home” after a mid-August worship team practice while I was away with the kids in Storm Lake.

I struggle with the idea that Gregg is not only a responder, but also initiator. It hurts deeply to think he has any desire for her. In that fall of 1995 I think he doesn’t want her for a partner – life or sexual – yet I am convinced that it’ll only be a matter of time together that something physical will happen.

I write Gregg a letter to that effect, calling what’s happening an affair of the mind, and laying out my view that there is an unhealthy and inappropriate attachment. Gregg admits there is an attachment that he can’t explain and that he doesn’t want to give up. Yet, the next day or even next minute he says,

“I really don’t see the danger, we are just friends.” 

*Haggling between Allure and me:

Best friend status between Allure and me is severely strained, and understandably so. Most normal folk would have let go completely of the relationship, especially when she says, “if I can’t see Gregg I don’t want to see you,” and “I’m uncomfortable with you,” and “I went to see a counselor and we talked mostly about you.”

If the same scenario happened some years later I want to believe I’d have the strength to completely cut off the friendship. But in the mid-1990s, she was a ‘thing’ that not only Gregg thought he needed, but that I also thought I needed. She pursued me. She brought me out of my introverted self.

She also intimidated me: like when she danced sensually and with abandon in my living room. Still, her spontaneity and impulsiveness excited in me a desire to be more like that – looser, freer. 

I demand a hiatus from her, but all the while I am still working for her husband and so we occasionally cross paths. She invites me to a play at the Guthrie in December 1995 and I accept. We begin interacting and have more contact again.

*Haggling between me and me:

I am miserable. I speculate my despair is partly from the effects of cortisol flooding, from living with extreme stress, from having my world shaken. Likely I sense the ordeal isn’t over. In late January I acknowledge that in previous months I’d been feeling “rather down, struggling emotionally, and the last week or two feeling like maybe I could just throw in the towel and do the SSRI drugs.”  I am investigating causes and helps for depression. Going to the cerebral is largely my first response to a problem. I look into Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and medication for depression. I am aware that my needs, for approval and to perform well, are also issues that need attention.

I try various approaches in early 1996 as I struggle with myself:

-pretending to feel okay

I write that sometimes, though short-term and rather ineffective, pretending that all was well “helped bring me out of the quagmire.” 

-listing the reasons I feel weighed down

Maybe I’m just emotionally drained… There’s been the threat of extramarital involvement, the fight to work out an awkward relationship, Seth’s friends and Magic cards, Rachel’s fall and care of Mark Miller, CEA’s questionable future and the potential for more teaching hours, just coming through the holidays, winter, and cold.

-facing my alcohol use

February 12, 1996. Last Friday I read in the Depression book that alcohol could be a cause (its use, not just a result) of depression, and be aggravating my body and brain chemistry considerably… It was, and still is, rather hard (to give up alcohol). Hard to give up that “feel good” in my life, when I feel that so much of my life is a downer emotionally.

-getting some outside help

I meet with our pastor, who had danced intimately with depression himself and who challenges my propensity to figure it out myself. To be urged by him to give up trying so hard to understand it all was a relief. I call a psychologist and make an appointment, and contact our family physician to explore medication. Based on the symptoms I describe, my doc says possible diagnoses include 

1) chronic fatigue syndrome, 

2) PMS, or 

3) depression. 

For my chronic emotional low-functioning that he labels “dysthymia,” he prescribes a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). I journal as I pray:

I decided to give the medication a try. I don’t feel like I’ve sold out Lord, but I do feel a bit sheepish about taking medication. Help me think through this:Why is it okay to take this drug that will affect my brain chemistry?

o    It’s a gift: “All good gifts are from above.” James 1:17

o    It will bring me more quickly to greater health, a kindness to self.  (I’ll give you all the glory.)

o    I’ve tried a number of other routes already. 

o    It’s a way to love myself – gives me a break, keeps me from despairing, helps with giving up the feel good of alcohol, hopefully will make it easier to be with and engage my kids.

o    It helps me understand my body, increases self-awareness. 

o    Taking meds follows the counsel of my husband, doctor, pastor. 

o    Is possibly a part of your equipping for me? “Now may the God of peace…equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight.” -Hebrews 13:20-21