Chapter 10: Drinking

“Yes, this is a love story. It's about passion, sensual pleasure, deep pulls, lust, fears, yearning hungers. 

It's about needs so strong they're crippling.” 

– Caroline Knapp

I don’t really know when alcohol use got so regular. As the kids got older and didn’t need us so constantly, Gregg and I would occasionally imbibe on the weekends.

It is sometime in mid to late 1995 that I want alcohol more than just once or twice a week. Probably to escape the craziness I am experiencing as I’m told that nothing is happening with Gregg and Allure but feel altogether like something must be. The all-week drinking continues until the early summer of 1996 when I read that alcohol exacerbates depression. I decide to cut it out to see if it seems to have any effect on my mood. 

My depression doesn’t seem much improved to me at the end of the summer, plus I am missing out on the relief and lift the alcohol offers, so I go back on. I drink in the evening, and am fairly good at hiding it, at least from my kids. Gregg usually knows, though not always. I continue to read about depression, trying to find relief in any way I could.

But I don’t give serious thought to quitting until after an incident on Christmas eve, 1996. Humiliation gets my attention. Again. It seems to work well with me (cue up my embarrassment and humiliation of getting pregnant before marriage; though in that there was a side benefit of huge increase in compassion for others in a similar situation).

During the evening it doesn’t seem like I drink so much—but either I did (most likely) or it was an act of God (less likely) that causes me to pass out. To make matters worse, I do my drop in front of the whole extended family. We are just saying our goodbyes, so my siblings and their families, my parents, husband, and kids are all standing around together. In the midst of them, I slump to the ground. One sister revives me, Gregg takes me and our kids to his parent’s house where we are staying the night, and after throwing up, I stagger to bed. 

Drunk is ugly, and feels ugly. Especially that night, the worse night and morning after, ever. I vomit numerous times through the night and into the next morning, so that eventually blood is coming up. Worse yet is the scare I put my kids through, particularly my daughter, who needs me to be really present and available to her while she’s working through some trauma of her own. 

She is afraid I will die. In the night hours, I wonder myself.

I start reading more about alcoholism in May and June of 1997, as the dreams and nagging voice in my head keep proclaiming warning.

DREAM. 1997-1999 off and on, “Brake problems”

While driving the orange pickup truck I have difficulty pressing down on the brakes hard enough to get the truck to stop. I feel anxious that I’ll run into something and do damage. Or I have a problem reaching the brake, finding the brake, putting pressure on the correct spot. I have to push it so hard, and find I am physically unable.

“Difficulty with your vehicle dreams usually arise when events in your waking life seem out of control, you feel powerless over something, or you’re afraid you’re about to fail or crash...”  

- Dream Dictionary for Dummies

Late May, as I’m reading BUZZ: the Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine, I learn more about the alcohol molecule – how it is broken down, and how it affects our liver, brain, and other tissues. I grow in understand of why I crave the stuff.

"We've seen that by inhibiting glutamate receptors, alcohol induces a general sedation and significantly impairs the brain's ability to store new memories. By increasing the sensitivity of GABA receptors, alcohol mimics Valium and reduces anxiety. Like a weak version of cocaine or amphetamine, alcohol boosts dopamine levels, producing a brief period of heady stimulation. And by endorphins, alcohol resembles opium, giving users a rush of pleasure similar to the 'natural high' experienced after a vigorous workout."

I read Caroline Knapp’s Drinking: A Love Story, and resonate with what she writes.

“Yes, this is a love story. 

It's about passion, sensual pleasure, deep pulls, lust, fears, yearning hungers. 

It's about needs so strong they're crippling. 

It's about saying good-bye to something you can't fathom living without. 

I loved the way drink make me feel, and I loved its special power of deflection, its ability to shift my focus away from my own awareness of self and onto something else, something less painful than my own feelings."

Her words help me define:

What alcohol does for me and why it’s a draw:

“Many of us drink in order to take that (psychic) flight, in order to pour ourselves, literally, into new personalities; uncap the cork, slide into someone else’s skin.  A liquid makeover, from the inside out.” (p 60)

 “Drinking released me from the compulsion to hold back, gave freer rein to appetites… I wanted that feeling, and I couldn’t seem to generate it on my own, and the amazing thing - the truly amazing and seductive thing – was that the drink could generate some version of it for me, a most convincing replica of ease and connection and relief, a least for a little while.” (p 69)

“You felt giddy and lighter and you had a sense of freedom, as though some secret part of you were rising up, a part you rarely have access to when you’re not drinking. This felt like a kind of relief: sober is dry and uptight; drink is fluid and liquid and loose.” (p 72)

Where I might be in the process:

“The vast majority of us are in far earlier stages of the disease: we’re early and mid-stage alcoholics, and we function remarkably well in most aspects of our lives for many, many years. (p14)

“The struggle to control intake – modify it, cut it back, deploy a hundred different drinking strategies in the effort – is one of the most universal hallmarks of alcoholic behavior… we develop new rules: we’ll never drink alone; we’ll never drink in the morning; we’ll never drink on the job; we’ll only drink on weekends or after five o’clock… we’ll do anything – anything – to show ourselves that we can, in fact, drink responsibly.” (p 120)

And what I need to face or do:

“There are moments as an active alcoholic where you do know, where in a flash of clarity you grasp that alcohol is the central problem, a kind of liquid glue that gums up all the internal gears and keeps you stuck.” (p 5)

“Liquor numbs the real feelings and the real fears and the real doubts; it deprives you of the courage it takes to be honest.” (p 88)

“When you quit drinking you stop waiting. You begin to let go of the wish, age old and profound and essentially human, that someone will swoop down and do all the hard work, growing up, for you. You start living your own life.” (p 239)

“There’s a big difference between walking through fears, which you do in sobriety, and escaping them, which you do through drink.” (p 254)

After reading that book, I think much about my drinking.

I come to the conclusion that the answers to ‘Why do I drink?’ are primarily for reward, relief, and escape.

·         My depressed brain finds momentary pleasure with alcohol, a surface satisfaction and reward for holding it together all day even though every right choice is sheer effort and I am tired.

·         I find relief from intense feelings of sadness, disappointment with myself and others, and anger.

·         I don’t know what to do with strong emotions of emptiness, rage, loneliness, terror, and unmet needs for love and worth; the alcohol provides an easy external diversion, or an excuse to vent on my husband.

The answers to ‘Why not drink?’ are

·         To learn to look to God to fill my deep yearnings.

·         To be alive with emotion, to go through the pain rather than around it, and to not just drown out my fear and rage since medicating emotions won’t resolve or alter them.

·         To heal and grow authentically, be present in my own life, and tend to my own needs with God’s help.

I know what needs to happen. Finally in late summer 1997 I cut it out. But, as has become my pattern, it was just for a time.

Chapter 9. Lying

I’m a thinker, I can think, and I think, “I think I can think differently.” 

When I first read through the list of cognitive distortions, offered in David Burns’ Feeling Good, I am surprised. [If interested in the list, refer to "Cognitive Distortions" in smaller font at end of this post.]

I muse, ‘Oh, that’s not normal? Not an okay way to think?’  But

I dig in and try the cognitive therapy suggested; upon awareness of upset, I identify situation, emotions, automatic thoughts, cognitive distortion, rational response.

Situation: In mid-February 1996, I am falling asleep early many nights. 
My emotions: sadness for time lost with Gregg in the evening and madness at myself.

My automatic thoughts: “I’m a party pooper, always have been and am still.”

The cognitive distortions: overgeneralization, labeling, and all or nothing thinking.

My rational response, an attempt to tell myself the truth: 
     “True, I’m not into really whooping it up, but I’m often willing to do something fun when suggested. I’d like to work on figuring out what I think is fun and initiating it. About falling asleep, maybe my body is adjusting to the meds. Maybe I could take naps to be able to stay awake with Gregg at night. Or maybe I don’t have to be awake most nights with him, we could substitute time at lunch or while on a walk.”

Another example.
Situation: Allure appears in my nightmare-ish dreams; and in real life Gregg talks with Allure.
Emotions: jealous, hurt, threatened, insecure.
Automatic thoughts: Allure would make a better wife to Gregg than me; Gregg finds her easier to talk to and finds me critical.

Cognitive distortion: mental filter, magnification.

Rational response: 
     Sometimes Allure has a way of getting to the core of things and articulating it in a way I don’t, so I can feel intimidated by her insight. Also it can seem like Gregg has to work harder to feel at ease with me lately. But there’s a much greater intimacy with us for all our years together. I have often chosen to serve and help him. Still I can learn to understand him more. I can learn some new ways of communicating acceptance and support. I can remember that Gregg loves me.

After some weeks on the depression meds and time of trying these cognitive approaches, I write in late spring 1996:

Time for update. I continue to daily chart on separate paper my moods, dreams, and some activity. I’m aware of the Zoloft having some effect, there’s a lift and not the same drudgery and lack of enthusiasm as I face the day.

New development – I found out Saturday night (2/24/96) and more Sunday afternoon of Gregg and Allure talking on the phone on a regular basis since November (probably maybe an average of once a week). Allure initiated at the beginning, Gregg returned some calls and initiated in the last month or so. They both are sorry and have asked for forgiveness. I’m working at forgiving completely.

I’ve felt much grief though in thinking on Gregg’s lying to me, and that he and she were deceptive and inconsiderate of my wishes.

I feel so disregarded.

I’ve had opportunity to express my hurt and anger – they both allowed it well. And Allure was articulate in identifying the wrong and hurt. Now I’m grieved over her situation with her husband and his lack of assuming any responsibility in the horrid dynamics in their relationship. Oh Lord, reveal truth. Penetrate.

I notice that I rather quickly pass over the offense in an attempt to move toward forgiveness. I am so wanting to move on and out of their sordid attraction and my dark emotions, out of hurt and anger. I want the opposite of all that: I want love and light and connection with husband.

I wince at my word choice of “penetrate” as it conjures up a picture in reminder of the kind of activity that was happening between them in those months. What I wanted then was for God to penetrate each of us with the reality of what was truly good and love. That is what I always wanted. In large measure that is what eventually happened. 

Gregg is a truth-teller now.

It takes a little while to get to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Many months pass.

Summer of 1996 includes our 20-year class reunion, and a cross-country road-trip family vacation -- to Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks and much more, adding many miles to our tired "wood" paneled station wagon's odometer. It turns out to be a lovely and memorable time. 

I experiment with the depression meds, occasionally taking a break from them. Most often when I go off the depression-helper chemicals I am either near tears or shedding tears; and I describe my feelings as frustrated, irritable, dull, weepy, destructive.

I come to some new awareness of other ‘drugs’ that I’d been using through my adulthood: those of activity and accomplishment to provide diversion or to feel better about myself. I realize that the need to do my “duty” has been more about me and my ego than about serving or loving God. There are so many ‘shoulds’ in my vocabulary. This quote from the book Boundaries, describes well where I stood on should.

“We have been so trained by others on what we "should" do that we think we are being loving when we do things out of compulsion. Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices.  You are the one who makes them.  You are the one who must live with their consequences.

– Cloud and Townsend (p 42-43)

What I write in my journal reveals a sure beginning of severely asking myself “Who am I?” And a hint of accepting some of my human limitations.

August 8, 1996.  It occurs to me that my motivation for doing things and accomplishing much perhaps really isn’t love for God “as unto the Lord,” but diversion and for self.

I can’t help but ask myself – who am I really? I think I defined myself as one who sought to meet the needs of others and serve them and God. Not so? Talk about identity crisis. I don’t know what I’m all about… I have for so long numbed myself. Just not felt.

August 13, 1996.  Yesterday (Monday) I felt pretty horrid, a bit tearful, really frustrated, cruddy inside. 

Thought of not eating (call it fasting and it’s acceptable to people around me) to drop pounds and have hurt. 

Death wishes. 

Feeling of duty – just keep doing ‘cause lots needed to be done. Thoughts of “all I do is work” (grocery, laundry, errands, help with homework). This is day 7 of no med.

Just read over some past entries – I do have a different understanding of life now with learning of serotonin and experiencing life with higher serotonin levels.

In Elijah’s depression story in I Kings 19 God takes care of some human needs – food, water, sleep, solitude – and then offers emotional and spiritual reassurances telling Elijah that this is what will happen, and what you will do next….  God gives Elisha as a helper, reassures Elijah that he’s not alone, saying “I have 7000 in Israel.” 

Could it be that my helper is medication? And my encouragement from God is my brothers and sisters in Christ?

Cognitive Distortions 
1. All-or-nothing thinking: You see things in black-and-white- categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
2. Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. Mental filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
4. Disqualifying the positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
5. Jumping to conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
    a. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
    b. The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
6. Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement) or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.”
7. Emotional Reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”
8. Should Statements: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
9. Labeling and Misleading: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
10. Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Chapter 8. Tries hard

Yes, I am depressed. I try to feel better, really I do. I have always been one who “tries hard” – I used to tell Gregg to put “She tried hard” on my epitaph since it described me best for too many years.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. 

-a saying I grew up with

I’ve tried hard to do good and be nice. 

Storytime: this try-hard-to-be-nice story is from a 2012 trip to the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, with Rebekah – who did the heavy lifting of translating and guiding. First stop is Cancun, where we’ve made reservations at an inexpensive hostel near the old-town plaza of the city.

 ~~~

Upon arrival at Hostel Quetzal we explore the place and our room that is painted in baby blue and boasts three large windows overlooking a small but lovely garden area: I am pleasantly surprised at the privacy and artsy feel. From my previous trips to Latin American countries, I recall that toilet paper goes in the trash receptacle and water from the tap is not to be consumed. Thankfully the hostel has a purified water container available for its customers. 

We go down to the common space to get in on supper. Chips and guac are brought to our table: both taste amazing. We sit separately from the other 20 or so people, who are almost all 20-somethings, at tables in rectangular arrangement. After a bit, Jake and Cosetta come to our table and encourage us to join the group. When we clarify we’re fine where we are they stay and ask a few questions. “Where are you from? What brings you here?” Jake is to my right, Cosetta is on Rebe’s left. When it comes out that Rebe and I are a mother-daughter team, Jake reveals disbelief (and maybe embarrassment, reports Rebe, who was watching his face; she asserts Jake was hitting on me - recall it is evening and the light is low). 

After a time they go back to the large table. Shortly after, Wayne and his sister and her husband sit down at our table and we converse. Wayne does most of the talking – telling us about his master of numerous languages, his Australian travel, his turning away Christian girls when he reveals his belief that “visitations” are aliens not angels.

Kinda-crazy Wayne says to me, “You’re NOT older than me, right? I’m 35.”

I answer definitively, “I’m 54.”

“No way, you are not.”

“I’m a grandma,” I proudly retort.

Wayne, though surprised, is undeterred. He continues rambling about his certainty of reincarnation based on a dream he had, about his Aussie woman friend who died just two weeks ago leaving three kids behind, and much more.

When Rebe calls him out on the heavy conversation - aiming to quell his domination of the conversation and attempting to give me an out from listening to him - Wayne lights into her saying, “this conversation was between two people,” and accuses her of being rude. 

Rebe, to quiet him, acknowledges that she didn’t mean to be rude, and shortly we excuse ourselves briefly to check in with friend Reuben. Eventually supper of barbeque chicken wings and bacon-wrapped stuffed peppers is served. Along with the guac and chips, the food is excellent, in contrast to the conversation with Wayne.

When Rebe and I talk after supper, she reminds me I don’t have to so nicely listen to just anyone drone on about gibberish nonsense. This old mom has much to learn. The up side: we certainly smile every time we recall crazy Wayne.

 ~~~

Important note: I am not always trying intently to be nice – of course I have a selfish side. One of those moments of putting myself first happened on this same Mexico trip after a long tiring afternoon in Puerto Morelos of sand, heat, and no running water in our "hotel" room. After some hours of requesting and hoping for a fix but with no desired result of water, we ask for our cash back, pack our bags, and move on. 

~~~

We walk to the roadside corner where the bus stops: we’ll ride to Tulum and find a room there. Next bus is in 30 minutes (or so) so we sit down at a nearby roadside stand and get some refreshment to hydrate and distract from the sweating.

Rebe asks, “Do you want a lemonade?”

I say, “I want a drink.”

Rebe brings back a lemonade and a margarita. We’d been sharing our food all along – both of us enjoying variety – but when Rebe suggests “I thought we could share these,” I say “I have to share?... ok, you can have a sip.”

We laugh. I share just a bit more than a sip (Rebe would say not much more than that though). And we decide the afternoon was win/win/win/win: quiet beach time, place to store luggage, able to move on to Tulum sooner saving a half day, and enjoyment of a roadside tall margarita.

We came, we saw, we sweat.

~~~ 

So, though certainly far from selfless (there are countless more examples of my selfishness), I do have a long history of trying hard, starting from my earliest “responsible” years:

•          I try hard in my teens: definitely an overachiever, I often am busy with two to three activities per evening during my high school years; choose late nights, early mornings, and full days of classes, band, choir, friends.

•          I try hard in my 20s: during the mid to late 1980s when three and then four kiddos were underfoot, while struggling financially and working numerous jobs and attempting to be supermom and supportive wife, I battle mild to moderate depression. I didn’t like calling it that back then; my journaling labels those feelings as sad, unenthusiastic, tired, emotionally down, blah, hurt so hard, ungrateful. I incite myself to be more grateful, less selfish (“see in it a chance to die,” said Amy Carmichael), more disciplined, more reliant on the Lord (“I wait for the Lord, more than the watchmen wait for the morning.” – Psalm 130:6).

•          I try hard in my 30s: In early 1996, when in my late 30s, to feel better I try various approaches. I learn from David Burns’ Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy to record a situation, determine the emotions that accompany it along with the automatic thoughts, identify the cognitive distortions, and come up with a “rational response.” This is an attempt to identify the lies I tell myself: as a help for, as the back book cover said,  “controlling thought distortions that lead to pessimism, lethargy, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other ‘black holes’ of depression.”

You feel the way you think, the book proclaims. 

Chapter 7. Depressed

I want so badly to feel happy. My kids need me to do normal mom things. Like birthday parties. About the time I am in darkest depression (winter 1996), Becky is turning 13 and wants to do a birthday trip with friends to the Mall of America. I agree, not having the strength to say no, but hardly having the strength to live the yes.

The ‘celebration’ is excruciatingly difficult, each step full of effort, with smile pasted on and kind consideration forced. Becky recalls the trip to be a good time and has no memory of my subdued dark emotional state. I often could muster up what was needed for the family, but in doing so exhausted myself.

Much of the motivation to get well then was for the sake of Gregg and the kids. If I didn’t have them, I’ve wondered if my death wishes might have turned into suicide success. Probably in hopes of deterring me from taking a permanent path of escape, therapist Maureen shared her perspective that kids who lose a parent to suicide are most disturbed. That insight actually helped. 

My kids needed me. Someone wanted me or needed me to be in this world, even if I didn’t want to exist in such pain. Son Seth has known the nothingness of depression, and as a high-schooler expressed --

People say you’re depressed

Sometimes they’re right.

You feel your throat choke

And your eyes close;

You lean back

In Disgust at yourself.

You wish you weren’t what you are

But nothing can change that

You are taught self-worth

By people who don’t understand

You are taught values

By pagans and Christians both

But they’re blurred

And you’re lonely

And you wish something would happen

Because anything is better than Nothing.

My heart still hurts when I revisit the sentiments in this poem. I feel the deep ache both as one who has been in the icy claw of depression, and as a parent who stands by feeling helpless when a child hurts so hard.

When there’s pain, I wish that I could take it all away – wave a wand and make it disappear. Couldn’t God do that? Wouldn’t God want to do that for God’s children?

Though God doesn’t seem to remove this affliction from some, I want to believe God – a presence beyond time, be it supreme Being or collective consciousness – loves and suffers with us all. I am grateful to NOT know what it would be like to suffer with people in all places, in all times, in all ways. I am grateful too that pain can be shared and can be redemptive.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

- Khalil Gibran

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

Chapter 5: Cutting

We are deeply enmeshed with Allure and her family.

My daughter babysits her kids, I work for their small specialized transportation company, we attend the same church, we have mutual friends and socialize together. So, it’s not uncommon for Allure to come by the house. But it gets more frequent and Allure stops by often for ‘humor fixes’ or for other flimsy reasons, or at times when I am absent but Gregg is present, or during a dinner party of which she was no part. I am NOT clueless. I badger the two of them with questions continually.

During a missionary-led Afghani dinner party that Gregg and I host on October 3, 1995, Allure stops by. When she offers to help with dishes and Gregg follows her into the kitchen to help, I am again flooded with stress-induced skin-crawling discomfort. 

After our guests leave that evening, Gregg and I have a long and tense argument about his relationship with Allure.

In many different ways I say, “There’s something going on.”

He insists repeatedly, “There’s nothing going on, we’re just friends.”

The next day Gregg mentally recalls our extensive altercation. Unfortunately, it’s while he is at work using a biscuit-joiner power tool. In his preoccupation with the previous night’s heated exchange, the tool slips and he badly cuts his hand. 

The local hospital emergency room personnel recommend a hand surgeon in Minneapolis, so Gregg and I drive to the Cities for surgery yet that evening. Allure calls twice after hearing of the accident. Under the influence of pre-op meds, Gregg says that he doesn’t care much what others think of him – that includes me and God – and retorts,

“Too bad she’s not a man, I think we could be best friends. But we’d probably be bad for each other, just go fishing and drink beer and do whatever we’d want.”

That finally does it. I insist that he not have any more contact with her. A day later when Allure stops by the house to see how Gregg is doing, I ask her not to see or talk with Gregg. She cries. I withdraw up to my bedroom to give them some moments alone together, “so they could have a few final words,” but I tremble violently the entire time they talk. The situation feels ominous. Gregg reports he just held her hand as they talked. That’s what he says. I wonder. My body is telling me how bad it is – 30 pounds lost between August and October – but my mind clings to believing the words they are saying.

Years later: Though I still have some naivety and generally trust that people will tell the truth, I have learned to be more careful; I certainly don’t believe everything I hear anymore. I give more attention to my gut, I give weight to my instincts. At least much more than before. I’m still learning to better listen to my body.

Chapter 4: Carried away

In the late summer days of 1995 while walking a square around the back lot of the high school, I melt with worry, fall to my knees with face to the ground, and wet the grass as I weep. I can’t get certain impressions out of my mind. 

Something is wrong. I am being pushed out, and one small example is being excluded from the small group doing special music at church. 

Allure (name changed from actual) had lined up a trio consisting of herself, my husband, and the composer-guitarist. I should be included, I am a part of the larger music team, and if Gregg is singing, then I want to be singing. Allure knows that, but has some flimsy excuse as to why I am not included.

It feels like there’s something much bigger going on. I wonder if I am being paranoid. 

I know I feel awful: displaced, unwanted, frightened.

I see the desire that Allure has for my husband. I ask her to stop the blatant flirting with my husband. Twice. When I first clarify, some months previous, that I am uncomfortable with the flirting, she hears me out. Even though she immediately goads me with “you mean, you don’t want me to yell across the river ‘hey handsome?’” as we are walking toward where Gregg is fishing, Allure does watch her words. At least around me, for a couple of months. 

My journaling in May 1995 reflects my angst over the flirting:

I feel like an ogre – and, as usual, the party-pooper – but in my spirit I know it must be so (to ask for the flirting to stop). Even Gregg said it was kind of fun while it lasted. And he told me of the questionable things he had said, “If I’m the one you’re dreaming of, I should know the dream,” and “Spike noticed your dress,” and he acknowledged that they were mistakes.

I feel like crying, so unsettled. I don’t really know why…disappointment at having to face the fact that another can arouse him, that the possibility of his unfaithfulness is real (given all the ‘wrong’ circumstances)?

I told him that I used to think that he was too loyal to ever stray, but that I didn’t think that anymore. 

He asked, “Why not?” 

I said, “Because I don’t think loyalty is strong enough to overcome the sexual involvements if you let go and not guard self and not take appropriate precautions. Am I wrong?” 

He said, “Probably not.”

Maybe I feel scared. Like maybe I won’t be all that he needs. And a little angry that I’ve tried hard to guard my affections and maybe he hasn’t tried as hard. He’s a different person though – more playful. What he did in flirting with Allure (though his part was minimal, still it was present) was out of wanting to please or indulge another and out of his looser sense of boundaries and discretion, not out of any hurtful intent toward me.

I’m also struggling with who I am.

Maybe I’m feeling inadequate, too. Help me Lord accept myself the way you’ve gifted me. Help me just blow off the rest.

Maybe too I’m not liking that Gregg is the one getting the attention and not me… Yet I know Lord, You’ve provided me with ample attention through Gregg and I am so grateful. Help Gregg be satisfied with married fidelity and my words of affection. Bind Satan – let him not reach our family.

My insecurities stay prevalent during the summer as I continue to struggle with who and how I am, just how God made me. Especially when Allure is around, I obsess with wondering if Gregg would rather that I was more expressively vivacious and passionate – qualities I attribute to Allure.

Sometime in late summer, I feel that swimmingly sick feeling that there is certain attraction mounting between Gregg and Allure. I do what I can. I tell Gregg again what I know of Allure's marital struggles. She and I are "best friends," she tells me "everything."  I know there are problems that will push her to look elsewhere for affirmation. 

I also again lay out my discomfort to Allure and encourage her to redirect affection from my partner to her own.

Both Allure and Gregg feign innocence, assuring me that they are just "friends," nothing more, no, nothing was happening. 

The attraction is still obvious though. I go for long walks and shed tears and cry out to the Lord. I don’t know how to do any more than I am doing, and God gives me the verse from Deuteronomy 1:30: 

“The Lord your God, who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, 

just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes…” 

I cling to what I dare to believe is so – that God will go before me and be my defender. That God will protect Gregg from harm and me from great pain. I have no other hope. I keep returning to that by revisiting some of God’s words. On October 17, 1995 I recount:

I need to update, but first want to record some promises I’d like to cling to, Lord.

“The God of heaven will give us success.” Nehemiah 2:20 

“Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” II Kings 6:16

“Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.” II Chronicles 20:15 

“Station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf…the Lord is with you.” II Chronicles 20:17 

“…and no injury whatever was found on him [Daniel in lion’s den] because he had trusted in his God.” Daniel 6:23b 

“In repentance and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.” Isaiah 30:15 

“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.” Isaiah 30:18

That hope helps me put one foot in front of the other; it keeps me alive.

Still, I am ragged. One friend at church comments that I look like I am about to blow away: I am obviously dropping pounds. 

I’m wishing I could be caught up in the wind and carried away. Where’s Elijah’s fiery flying chariot and horses (II Kings 2:11) when you really need ‘em?