Category Archives: Family

My Mental Health Story

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I am 42 years old, and I have been diagnosed with ADHD. Not only do I have ADHD, but I tested to have extreme ADHD. My ADHD was easy to miss when I was younger, because I am quirky, and I appear to be smart, and I seem to fit in with a neurotypical world. See, when I was a young adult in my 20’s I knew there was something wrong with me. I was filled with a desire to learn so much but couldn’t sit down to read most of the books I had to read.

Remember when I said I appeared to be smart? I graduated middle school with a C average, high school with a very low B average, college with a C average, and Seminary with a C average. But I looked smart, and I showed a reasonable command of the subject matter, so no one was really concerned. However, during Seminary I had my first panic attack, at least the first one I remember so, I took a step back from ministry and entered counseling to help me with what I would later understand was depression and anxiety.

After seminary, I entered a Clinical Pastoral Education (hospital chaplain) program where there were no grades, no tests, just experience, there was a lot of reading, processing, and group work, and I was more successful at that than at anything else in my life. In hindsight I know that is because the educational model of CPE is very neurodiverse. We are given multiple paths to learning, and I could even see this. I realized I need to read, watch, listen, and experience to really learn something.

I was in my 30’s when I was fired for the first time because my mouth often moved faster than my brain. I made an honest statement that was inconsistent with the culture of the organization for which I worked, regarding the role of chaplaincy. Two weeks later, I no longer worked there, and that was the first time I hit rock bottom. I remember posting online, “I have never been so full of emptiness.” I found myself homeless surfing couches and going back and forth between jobs and government assistance. Though I got through that, it left me with post traumatic stress.

This PTS would go on to entrench me in depression and anxiety for all the years hence. I would find different ways to relive that trauma over and over again. The most recent time during the Covid Crisis, but I’m jumping ahead. I could generally keep my depression and anxiety at bay and finally found a faith that made more sense to me. And though faith is a balm for a weary and broken soul, it is not often the only necessary medicine.

Years after completing the long process of fellowship with my new faith, I found myself deeply entrenched in depression again. I looked up from a sermon after a panic attack and said, “Why am I preaching about depression again?” I had always been a proponent of medication for mental illness, for other people. I never realized that I would have to fight myself to become a proponent of medication for my mental illness.

Once medicated life returned to normal, I wasn’t sad all the time, but I still found myself hyper focusing on trauma and anxiety from the past. When the Anxiety got too bad, I would find a different hobby, and I would hyper focus on that hobby so that I could continue to work, then when that hobby stopped being new I found something else. Of course, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I had the opportunity to become a cyclist, a hiker, a vintage computer guy, and a game master. In fact, I still love those things.

But when the pandemic hit many of my coping mechanisms dried up. I no longer had Sunday Service where I would cut up with teens, I didn’t have the energy to hike or cycle. I watched people play down the corona virus and I began to isolate, I felt completely alone. Then the financial issues started, the AC went out in the summer, the refrigerator a few months later, the dryer before all that. My half time career, (which working half time always causes me internal shame) was not cutting it financially, and it constantly felt like we were a month from losing our house. But I couldn’t figure out what was different.

During that time my depression and anxiety put my job in jeopardy, I was having multiple anxiety attacks a day. I had gained 50 pounds and hurt all the time. I felt alone, and began to feel paranoid, and I had my very first nervous breakdown. When I look back to that time I shudder, because I was in a pit, and I couldn’t get out. Then we had to put down two dogs, the first we expected and the second we didn’t.

I had already called my doctor, he had already doubled my medication, which is probably why I am still here today. But I was still having regular panic attacks. I think I might have burned a lot of bridges during that time, and I think a lot of people were worried about me, but very few of them said anything in a way I could understand, I think most people just tried to avoid me. By this time, I was very publicly saying, “I’m not ok.” But I didn’t know what to do with that.   

Over time, medication, and therapy I began to find my way out. I became ok, but I was still exhausted all the time, I still focused on gloom and doom all day, I still struggled to work, and my therapist, reminding me I was depressed also mentioned ADHD.

Through her office I took a test. I remember the therapist asking, “Do you have a problem with losing track of conversations?”

I said, “I have a story about that!” I began to tell a tangential story, then after a few minutes said, “Wait, what was the question?” Apparently, I had answered the question. It turns out my level of ADHD was in the “Extreme” range. Over the years, my ADHD, along with the anxiety, depression, and trauma magnified each other. The isolation of the pandemic exacerbated the issue. It became a perfect storm of despair.  I think if not for my wife and step-children along with a few very good friends and a therapist, I would have become lost in myself, because what happens after your already broken, do you become more broken, or do you return to dust?

I take medication now for my depression, anxiety, and ADHD, and see my therapist regularly. I have multiple colleagues that I reach out to on a regular basis and always have somewhere to check in, and for the first time in a long time, I feel joy. I believe I can accomplish things again, and I’m not exhausted. I am beginning to embrace my new label, neurodivergent, because why would anyone want to be typical?

You may be wondering why I am choosing to share this now. Because I know I am not alone. I am a neurodivergent living in a neurotypical world, and that feels lonely. I am also telling this story because there aren’t enough people in leadership who do. We still live in a world that stigmatizes mental illness and I wonder, if more leaders would share their stories, would more people get help.

The hardest thing to learn is that mental illness is an illness like any other, and no one should avoid treatment because of the people who don’t understand. I also think it is important to note that it isn’t anyone’s fault that this happened to me, or that I am like this, not my parents, my family, or any other relationships, and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

So in my final word, you don’t have to be alone.

Chewing and the Art of Biting off Too Much.

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Like many of you the most recent pandemic has been very difficult for me. I learned a lot about myself, most of which is that I was not prepared to live though a pandemic. During this time, I often found that I was keeping myself busy. During times like this I often learn something new and continue to work through older things I’ve learned. Basically, I pick up hobbies. I did find however, that through quarantine I struggled with my depression and anxiety. And just in case you are curious, I don’t bare shame about my depression and anxiety. In fact, I am open about them. I choose, as a minister and all-around human being, to be open about them because of social stigma around mental health. Mental health is no different than any other health issue, in fact the refusal to practice self-care around mental health exacerbates other issues you may have. But that isn’t the topic I have chosen for today.

As a religious person, I try to practice spirituality, you might have heard this called spiritual practice. One of the ways I do this is through living authentically. Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “My life and my philosophy are one and the same.” When I consider spiritual practice, I think of Brother Lawrence and Saint Therese Lafleur. I think of my life lived as spiritual practice, also what makes me feel alive. The biggest thing that helps me through difficult time is throwing myself into something I’ve never done and learning a moderate proficiency in it. Often these are the things I post about in my blogs. The problem is that during the pandemic I started to learn a lot of different things, and the one thing I didn’t feel like was processing those things spiritually.

I had plans, during the pandemic do write about my Commodore 64, but before I could I started baking. I actually prepared some articles on the baking but before them I threw myself into a live action role playing game called “Call of Cthulhu.” I was considering an article on that, when I began to work on my ham radio license.

While all this was happening, I lost two canine members of the family, you may have seen my post about Princess, two weeks later we lost our friend Gizmo, he was a shock, his death broke me. Oh and there was work, adapting the church to a fully online model took a lot of time. I no longer just though about how to have a service, but how to do it livestreaming and archiving legally.

However, having said all of that, I hope to still add posts about bread baking, my Commodore 64, RPG, Ham Radio, spirituality, and even my friend Gizmo. I am beginning to feel renewed, let’s hope for a while.

My Little Lady

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I’m staring at empty space trying to work. I never knew silence could be so deafening.

Princess on a trip to the Mississippi Delta

I’m used to hearing the click clack of little dog feet. I’m used to looking down and seeing big eyes staring up at me. It was an absolute joy to adopt Princess in her last two years of life. Don’t get me wrong, having a geriatric dog can be difficult. She had to be penned in at night and surrounded by pads because she was losing control of her faculties. Most mornings we woke, and we found a mess, but we cleaned it up and moved on without day. She was a little dog, so as she aged, she began to struggle more and more getting up and down the two steps into our back yard. Understand Princess was already in decline when we brought her home, but we knew that whether it was 6 months or years she would be a perfect addition to our home.

Her owner had died, and we loved her, so we thought the best way to show that love was to take care of her little Princess.

Every morning when I came out, I looked at her and said, “Good morning little lady, lets go outside.” She looked up at me with acceptance and love, one of my greatest joys upon returning home after a long day was hearing her excited howl as I approached the door. When I picked her up just right and held her against my chest she would chitter very quietly, almost like a purr, then she would sigh, try to turn and lick my face.

Princess in her pretty sweater

In the last few months, her decline had become obvious. She was tripping over shoes, she could no longer climb easily into her bed, and she tried to hide from us when she couldn’t control herself. That’s when we start having the conversation. If you’ve never owned an elderly animal you may not know what I am talking about if you have you are probably crying just a little while you read this.

See, our animals can’t tell us when they are in pain, and unlike us, they don’t have an active imagination with a wonderful history to pull on. I am not saying they don’t remember, but for them, the moment is primary. I begin to ask, how are the moments that she’s having. More often I would reach down, and she would back away for just a moment because she was frail and sometimes touch hurt. Some mornings she couldn’t get out of her bed and I had to pick her up and walk her to the yard and set her down, and others she would pop right up and be waiting at the door.

The problem is, we don’t want to go too soon, and we don’t want to wait too long. There is no simple answer to this question. I know only that she shy’s away from our touch, she has little control when she has to go to the bathroom, and she sleeps most of the day. Oh, there were other signs but none of these seem good enough, because they are so good at loving us unquestionably and they want to make us happy too, and letting go of that is hard.

Then princess had a seizure.

I first laid her down on her bed, and her mouth immediately locked on her blanket. Then, powerlessly I picked her up and wrapped her in the blanket she was unable to release. She lost control of herself when I put her in my car, and she looked up at me with shame. I knew then that we could never let her go through this again. When we went to see her, she was so excited to see us, she reveled in us, her seizure had passed, but she was still 16 and I remembered her eyes when I laid her in my car to take her to vet, they were like a prayer. Maybe we could have gotten a few more days, weeks, or months of love, she would have given freely, but then I’d have to reckon with her eyes that moment that I laid her in my car.  

Saying Goodbye

She was my little lady, and her eyes alone spoke volumes of joy and love… and trust. The decision is hard to make because it can’t be unmade, because if we can get just a little more love from them if we can just feel that acceptance one more time, but when does that become selfish? That is the price we pay for their love and that is why no one should take on pet ownership too soon. Having a pet is forever, maybe not our forever, but theirs, they trust us, depend on us, they love us, and want to see us happy. It’s more than walks and feeding. It’s more than spending time with them, they are family. The ultimate responsibility we have, is the willingness to say goodbye when their forever is over. And we have to make that decision, they cannot.

See, there is no real way to repay the love that comes from owning a pet, but then true love can never be repaid. But there must willingness to love them truly and that their pain is just as real as ours and they can’t always tell us.  

It has been a day, my little lady is gone, I didn’t have a mess to clean up, I don’t hear the clip clop of her feet, I am not babysitting her to make sure she can get outside in time. But you know what I miss the most, her eyes, her eyes when she gets excited, when she pretends to bite my fingers, or licks my face. I miss the clip clop of her toenails on the floor. I miss the way she sighs when I pick her up and hold her against my heart.

And though I know it was not too soon, I will spend the next few months wondering if she went too early, that is the final price we pay for their love. And it is proof that we loved them truly.  

The Good Witch of Peter’s Run Road: The Woman of Noble Character

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I sat down to listen to music my Grandmother would never know, in a place my grandmother has never visited, in a home that has not felt her hands. I didn’t realize when I sat down that it was finally time to outline this next chapter. This has been the chapter that I have feared the most, the chapter that I have put off, but strangely the chapter with the most enticing title, a title I wrote many years ago, long before I realized this would require writing.

The last time I spoke to Elsie, she offered me all the photo albums she had left. We went through old boxes, I gathered treasures many would throw away. She was insistent that I take a few things, one of those things, was a list of sayings… an apocryphal gospel she was raised with, quotes from the Bible, her mother, her grandmother, and her friends. A code used to understand the world around her, at least the world she knew, a world as foreign to me as this world was foreign to her. It was as if she needed to know that our worlds were connected.

She never owned a computer. She was my bridge to the past, my bridge to a world long gone. When walking into her home, I felt like I was stepping into the past. She was nestled in a valley, with a small creek baptizing the land, in a place no cell phone signal dare touch, and though I know it was because of the mountains, the mystical part in me, that Grandma helped to grow, assumed the mountains considered the signal anathema to the timeless nature of the land that surrounded my grandmother. That is was timeless, because she was timeless.

And as we sat and talked, I felt something very profound, peace. On the porch of this little house hung a swing, on the swing sat Elsie, in the chair sat Dutch, and in between sat… me. I drank coke in my younger days, coffee as I grew older, but I always ate an oatmeal cream pie. I lost track of the hours we spent on the swing, I once preached that heaven must be a front porch swing, overlooking a large evergreen tree, complete with a coffee and an oatmeal cookie, because I could envision no place so peaceful as this.

I can’t remember a thing we said, I don’t know if the words were necessary, only the presence of mind, body and most of all, of soul. Her home was a magical place, where light refracted from window crystals, casting rainbows in the kitchen, and the basement full of the wonders of days gone by, where my cousins, brother, and I would play detective or musician.

So many treasures, I asked her once about a chair hanging on the wall, she told me came from her grandmother’s kitchen table, so I did the only thing I knew to do, I asked her if I could have the chair. I still have that chair, and no one sits on it, but I remember to tell anyone who asks (and many who don’t) that it sat on my grandmother’s, grandmother’s kitchen table. Her home was full of endless treasures… endless stories… and endless love.

So… though she has never physically touched this space, it is saturated by her spirit. Not just because of the chair, or glasses, or the plates (seriously she gave me a lot of stuff), or even the paper, written in her hand covered in sayings.

Grandma’s magic was faith, hope, and love. And, every time the crystal in our window refracts a rainbow, I am filled with her faith, hope, and love. But even without the rainbow and crystal, her touch, and her voice, her spirit will never be gone from me, because when Grandma gave you her love it was forever.

Saint Dutch

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Grandad is always intentional.

When I was younger and we left the house to work in the yard there was a process. We walked to the basement and sat on the steps, we changed from our shoes into our boots, we left out of the garage, past the second refrigerator full of coke, past Grandma’s car, past the tennis ball that hangs from the ceiling (so that she knew when to stop), past the air compressor on the left. We walked past the old well that’s been covered up as long as I could remember and took a right, walked parallel to the creek, and across the front yard toward the shed that looks out upon the garden.

Every move, every step, full of intention.

At the right time of year, the garden would be full of tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, and green beans. Lots of green beans, so many in fact Grandma and Grandad would sit on the porch after harvest to wash them to prepare them for canning, usually well over 100 cans. But that day wasn’t a canning day.

As we approached the shed we passed an old horse drawn plow, an antique, it was now a reminder of days’ past. I would always place my hand on its handle, thinking how strong the men who controlled it must have been, even if it is being pulled by some form of animal. The giant blade would cut into the soil, and the man behind the plow would guide it, walking every inch. Touching the plow, I wondered, “What is strength,” and then I would look to Grandad.

My grandfather grew bush beans instead of the pole beans I often see in the south, and that day I went to pick with him. He’d pick each plant three times because the beans would grow back. We would each get an old milk crate to sit on while we picked and a basket in which to place the beans as we moved down the row.

“Be careful” he’d say, “don’t pull the plant out of the ground, we will pick it again.” He repeated this so often it could be a mantra for some strange religion. In all honesty, I would get a little tired of hearing it, wondering when he would move on to something else.

I said, “Okay,” then pulled the plant out of the ground, hastily returning it, hoping he wouldn’t notice. I realized it takes a firm and gentle hand to pull the beans from the plant without pulling out the plant, and that’s my grandad, firm and gentle.

By trade my grandfather was a painter, I went on a few jobs with him to make extra cash in the summers, well, I just went on one, I was harsh and impatient, he was firm and gentle. I noticed his hand moved with intention, never swaying, never veering, and never any proof that paint had been anywhere it wasn’t supposed to be. I would stand in awe, I don’t think I did anything with that much intention, and for him it was so natural, though never mechanical. His movements were elegant and rooted in peace.

I remember coming in from the garden that day with Grandad.

I was a young minister, and I spoke to grandmother of sermons I would preach about that day, even though I wasn’t sure what they were. To this day, I’ve not preached those sermons, I don’t know if I will ever have the authority to preach them. On my best day, I struggle to live them. Grandad, a military veteran and a boxer would teach me that true strength came from peace.

I was never any good at my grandfather’s trade, but some Sunday’s as I prepare for church I put on my shoes with intention, and I think of Grandad. He is known by many names, Grandma calls him John, his friends call him Dutch, but to me, he is and will always be Grandad. My patron saint of peace.

Of Max and Me: In Honor of My Grandma

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My father called me while I was sitting in my car in the drive through at McDonald’s. I had just handed the woman behind the window my debit card as he told me that Grandma Max had died. My grandmother was not an open book, she seldom spoke of her past, neither child nor adult. I asked her once, when I had become an adult, to tell me about her childhood and she began by telling me about her mother. She told me that the day her mother died was like losing her best friend. I don’t remember much about the rest of our conversation, and I am ok with that. I asked her a lot of hard questions about the stories she’d always avoided, and she answered every one of them fearlessly, and though that past may survive in her brothers, I am happy to let that part of her memory die without giving it a second thought, because regardless of the struggles and difficulties of her past, she loved me thoroughly without question. So I will always focus on the stories she chose to tell when I didn’t ask, and the life we lived side by side. I will remember her as I always have, her grandson.

And our story begins like this…

There is an alley that runs through Warwood, in Wheeling, West Virginia. My grandmother walked that alley daily, in hindsight it strikes me how much of her life and mine was spent walking through that alley. It was not very wide, only one car could fit through, and though I drove through it frequently as a teenager. Now, when I visit I refuse to even attempt a trip through because the alley was constructed out of blind intersections and potholes.

When I was very young Grandma Max would visit every Saturday. Our visits were always the same. My brother and I would put on our shoes and we would walk, for my grandmother did not drive. We walked for what seems like hours, but it was always worth it. It was worth it because at the end of our walk I would gaze ever so hopefully on the golden arches of McDonald’s Restaurant. My brother and I were regular visitors to McDonald’s, sometimes after school Dad would pick us up in his yellow truck and take us through the drive through. That generally happened on Thursday, because Thursday was pay day. But there was one big difference between my father’s visits and my Grandmother’s visits, Grandma would buy us Happy Meals.

My father’s refusal to buy happy meals was very logical. First, it wasn’t enough food. Second, nuggets didn’t come in happy meals at the time, and dad wasn’t going to let me waste a hamburger. And finally, the toys were cheap and often broke or didn’t work right. Grandma however, bought the happy meal and an order of nuggets so I could get my toy, even though in most cases the toy was either forgotten or broken before I got home.

After McDonald’s we would stop in to see my Grandma’s best friend Katherine. Katherine worked at a dry-cleaners on Warwood Avenue. I remember she would always give us pennies or nickels while they talked, Aric (my brother) and I would feed them into the gum machine. The gum machine would spit out these tiny square shaped pieces that, after 5 minutes, tasted like cardboard. Though, for some reason they were great. I didn’t realize until later how much Katherine treated us like family. She would send us a gift on Christmas and did not mind us raiding the penny tray by the cash register.

Some days we went to her home to visit, I don’t remember much about her home other than the ring shaped pipe holder on the end table, I didn’t figure she actually smoked them but I could not get over how cool they looked.

Grandma’s rented a house right off the alley, and after leaving Katherine’s we would sometimes stop by. I don’t remember a lot about that house, only really the day it was torn down. I don’t know if that place held good memories for Grandma, and I never thought to ask. I remember a lot though about the duplex she rented on 19th street afterward, it also sat right on the alley. The apartment had a boiler in the basement and a radiator in the living room. During the winter by brother would scoot by in his sox touch the radiator to watch the spark, then he would touch me to watch me jump.

We spent a lot of time in that alley, walking ever to and fro. If you grew up in Warwood with me you may remember my Grandmother walking through. I also grew up in a house almost right off the ally, and I imagine next time I am home I won’t be able to sit on that porch of the house, without expecting Grandma Max to come around that corner and walk Aric and I to McDonalds.

On the phone I couldn’t help but tell my father how glad I was that he waited to call until I was in the drive through at McDonald’s. It gave me the chance to think only of her as I drove to my meeting eating my chicken nuggets. I think next time I may get a happy meal, of course they don’t have enough food and the toys always break anyway. But still, a happy meal, an extra order of nuggets, a milkshake, and Grandma Max, what could be better?