Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit: Depression - Part Two

In the first post on depression, we looked at some of the decent ideas for surviving depression while being a homeschooling mom like exercising, avoiding caffeine, and following a schedule.  We saw one terrible idea - use OTC progesterone creams. *shudders*

This post is focused on quotes from the chapter that are mediocre to terrible.    Let's jump in:

I discovered that I made it best through a time of depression when I didn't try to analyze what was causing it. It was better to accept my feelings - as Steve would encourage me to do - like a physical ailment to be patiently waited out. The more I ferreted for the causes, the more discouraged and upset I would become.

However, the times I accepted the feelings and said," Lord, I don't like this, but I'm going to focus on you and not on me. I am not going to make any major decisions or search for the cause. I will just wait. If I do that, it will pass with no damage except for feeling down. If I think about being depressed, and talk to Steve about it, it will pull me further down, resulting in wrong thoughts and words." (pg. 99)

This feels like a good idea / bad idea combination to me.

Good bits:
Depression IS a physical ailment and all of the current treatments require some amount of time to become fully effective.  When a person's pancreas doesn't make enough insulin, they have diabetes and they need some time to work out how much insulin they need.  When a person's thyroid stops working, they have hypothyroidism and it takes a bit of time to work out the amount of thyroxine they need.  When a person's brain has issues with the amount of neurotransmitters it produces,  they become depressed and it takes some time to find an anti-depressant that works well for them.  These aren't analogies; they are similar biochemical processes.  Anyone who treats depression as a "spiritual ailment" or something that can be fixed by sheer willpower is being willfully ignorant - and should think about why we don't expect heart attack patients or cancer patients to "just snap out of it."

Depression changes the quality of a person's thoughts and the tenor of their emotions.  That's a nice way of saying that your thinking skills get crappy and you feel guilty or sad over events that you would generally shake off.   Looking for a "root" cause of depression while depressed is counter-productive; get healthy before trying to figure out what (if any) life changes have to happen.

Bad bit:
Social isolation makes isolation worse.  Letting adult family members know that you are struggling and need help is okay too as well as explaining to your kids what is happening in an age-appropriate manner.

When Steve had run out of ideas on how to help me on his own, he found a pastor's wife who agreed to counsel with me. Janice and I met in person one time for an afternoon. She started by making sure I knew I was saved (see Chapter 2). With that insurance, she then gave me a couple tangible projects to put my focus on the Lord rather than on myself. I called her a few times on the phone - at Steve's insistence - and the path she sent me on was exactly what I needed.

Here are two of her projects. Perhaps they will be helpful to you as well. The first project involves learning to take captive my wrong thoughts - thoughts of being depressed, thoughts that I was going to ruin my children, thoughts that I would never feel normal, thoughts of anger, bitterness, or defeat, and thoughts of being overwhelmed. Those thoughts were all lies! 2 Corinthians 10:5 is now one of my favorite verses. It says, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." I was to take my thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ! For example, the truth concerning the feeling of being overwhelmed is that the Lord hasn't given me one more thing than there's time to do. If there isn't time to do it, then He doesn't expect it of me. My family was better off with next to nothing being done than with my trying to do everything my expectations said needed to be done while I was depressed, with my mind running in circles and unable to concentrate. (pg. 100)

So many bad bits:
Professional counselors do not treat their own family members because it is impossible to set up the emotional boundaries needed to do the work successfully.  Ditto for medical doctors.  Steven Maxwell is a military vet / sales worker / engineer / entrepreneur - so he has neither the needed education or the emotional distance to treat his own wife's depression.

Religious clergy are great at being spiritual counselors - the people who help answer questions like "How can I improve my relationship with God?" or "How can I be more involved in some ministry?"  They do not have the training to be a psychological counselor unless they have a licence as a social worker, therapist or psychologist from the state.  (It's rare - but I've known priests, pastors, sisters, and rabbis who had both clerical and counseling credentials.)  Unless the pastor's wife attended seminary and got an additional educational degree in counseling, she's even less qualified to counsel.  (Oh, plus, this is Baptist-gone-extreme theology; the pastor might not have gone to seminary.)

Being reminded that you are saved isn't a good protection against depression let alone a treatment for it.

My therapist would have a field day trying to teach Teri the difference between "feeling" and "thinking".   Terri's having problems with feelings like sadness, hopelessness, guilt, anger, bitterness, exhaustion, irritability and despair.   Trying to replace a negative critical way of thinking is a good long-term goal, but she may also drive herself insane in the short term if she can't differentiate between "I feel sad" and "I should be homeschooling in a perfectly clean house and a smile on my face right now!"

The "God doesn't give me more than I can handle" idea is one of the most toxic additions to Christianity.   Sometimes people have more than they can handle on their plate and need to get outside help or give up something until life settles down.  Teri's depressed;  Steve needs to man up and figure out what can be done to lighten her load until life settles down again.

The pastor's wife encourage me to begin a notebook. She showed me hers. It was a simple eight and a half by 11 inch 3-ring binder with "ABC" tabs in it. Behind the tabs she had notebook paper, each with a topic on it, such as " Anger," "Discouragement," "Discipline," etc. When she had her Bible reading time, she would take verses that applied to her and copy them down in her notebook under an appropriate heading. Then, when she needed to think "truth" she could open her notebook and read it. (pg. 100)

I am not a journal - person.  I am not a scrapbook person.   The thought of having a binder filled with Bible verses divided up by topic sounds like a bad high school religion homework assignment - not a treatment for depression. 

For my second project, I was to have another section of the notebook titled "Sin List." Every time I sinned, I was to write it in the notebook. I was then to confess the sin to the Lord, repent of it, and ask His forgiveness. In my notebook, I would write "FORGIVEN" over that sin. This help me to let go of my failures rather than letting them overwhelm me. (pg. 101)

I don't think having a notebook sitting around my house with a list of my most recent sins would make me feel less depressed - even if I wrote "FORGIVEN" over each of them.   In dysfunctional or abusive families, that notebook could be dangerous for the person who creates it if it gets into the wrong hands.

I believe most powerful change came when I made a decision before the Lord one morning. I remember thinking, "Lord, I just feel like crying all the time. I am miserable. My family is miserable. I can't seem to do anything about how I feel, but I can do something about how my family feels. I can act like I am happy whether I feel like it or not. My emotions don't have to drive my behavior, and I can make that choice because of my love for my family." Those reading this who are living with depression may think this would be impossible for you to do. I encourage you to test yourself. When you are down and go to church, can others tell by looking at you and talking to you that you are depressed? If you can make this choice to act differently from how you feel there, you can do it at home! (pg. 102)

Being actively struggling with depression messes with your ability to judge other people's emotional states as well.   I don't doubt Teri Maxwell felt miserable - but does that mean her kids and husband were miserable as well?  I doubt that. 

There's some benefit to trying to behave in a way that closer to how you behave normally than giving into to feelings of exhaustion and not being motivated.  I think of things like eating three meals a day, taking a shower daily, putting on clean clothes and exercising as important events of self-care to do when depressed.  I also tried to do some things that I enjoyed as much as I could when struggling with depression like going to a movie or an special exhibit at the museum.

Attempting to hide your emotions entirely from your immediate family is going to be less successful than hiding them from people at church.   People at church who don't know me well or who are not terribly perceptive may not pick up when I'm struggling with depression.   Good friends at church will notice when I'm depressed - perhaps especially much if I try to hide it.  Plus, there is a finite time spent at church each week.  Compare that with the remainder of the week spent at home; faking it for that long is nearly impossible.  Finally, children are designed to be tuned in to the emotions of their parents.  It's a handy survival strategy.  They pick up on a lot of facial cues that people have little or no control over so completely faking them out is really unlikely.

If it is any encouragement, I have asked my older children if they remember the struggles I had during those early, difficult days of their lives. My two oldest boys, who are now adults, recall nothing negative. Can you believe the Lord might blind our children to what is going on inside of us especially when so much of it is easily visible? My adult daughter only remembers one time I was really struggling. I don't share that as a license to allow hormones or depression to control your life or emotions. Rather I tell it who help you not feel that it is ever hopeless, even if you think there's too much emotional damage already done to the children and to you. (pg. 103)

A few points:

How honest are the adult kids allowed to be in the Maxwell Family?  Do they have the type of relationship that would let the kids say "Well, yeah, looking back you seemed grumpy and withdrawn through most of the years when we were young?"   How does that work in a family that is financially dependent on a set of shared businesses?  How does that work for their adult daughters who are financially dependent on their parents?

How perceptive are the adult Maxwell kids?  Some people read others easily; others don't.  Is it plausible that Nathan and Christopher didn't notice their mom struggling when their sister who was 3-5 years younger noticed?

I said earlier that the Maxwell kids were probably not miserable because Teri was miserable.  At the same time, having a parent with untreated depression is rough on kids.  My mom struggled with depression after my brother died.  She got medical help along with therapy - but I still remember times where she seemed more angry than normal or more withdrawn.  I felt worried and sad during those times because I missed the happy, engaged mom that I usually had.   Looking back, knowing that my mom was doing everything she could think of to stay engaged while receiving treatment for depression takes away some of the discomfort of those memories.  Sometimes life sucks for a time - but Mom always got out of the depression. 

Because of my experiences, I hope that CP/QF moms who are depressed reach out for real treatment of depression.  It's the kindest thing to do for themselves and their kids.